#perfect tense

[krabatdog]

The many faces of Perfect Tense (aka i asked people what they want to see him dressed as)

Delectable Agent Boy Perfect Tense by @xrafstar

[xrafstar]

[astercontrol]

"i'm a perfectionist"

"no you aren't."

"yeah i am. i want everything i have done to be perfect."

"but you never do anything"

"yeah. that's because I don't want to DO anything. I always only want to HAVE DONE things."

"..."

"that's what 'perfect' means, right"

[bogology]

[thecurioustale]

Imperfection

Does it seem to you like society is forgetting what the perfect verb tenses are? Especially the past perfect tense, which is a super common one.

I have seen this from enough quarters of society in recent years to begin to wonder if there is a genuine trend in that direction. "I should have went to the store today." "I wish I'd ate the leftovers sooner." These kinds of misconstructions are everywhere now. They grate on me a lot, so they're hard for me to miss.

The more complex verb tenses were always plagued by misusers; that's nothing new. But, historically, misuse was usually associated with uneducated or delinquent people, or with minority cultural vernaculars (especially black dialects, in the US anyway). (Indeed, linguistic prescriptivism was one of many ways in which American culture repressed minority advancement in society.) But nowadays I'm seeing it much more commonly among educated white people—people with college degrees, whose first language is English, and who read books. These are people who have no excuse not to know what the rules are.

Is this a crossover effect of minority dialects transforming mainstream usage patterns through social media influencers? Is it a symptom of deteriorating quality in our education systems? Is it indicative of the unfortunate fact that having "a college education" in modern times doesn't necessarily mean that a person is knowledgeable or smart? Or some other reason?

Or is this not a real trend, and I'm just overgeneralizing my anecdotal observations?

[hovee-studies]

Imparfait vs. Passé Composé

As you may or may not already know, both Imparfait and Passé Composé and are past tenses.

So how do you differentiate between them?

Think of it this way:

Imparfait is like the background of whatever is happening and Passé Composé is like the specific event that happen in the foreground.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

When to use Imparfait?

As I already said, Imparfait is like the background of your story. It is used when when giving general information about an event that happened in the past or simply just giving some context.

However, it can also be used when describing activities, states, or habits, e.g.

Il était une fois une princesse. There was once a princess.

Elle vivait dans un château avec ses parents. She lived in a castle with her parents.

Elle était toujours sage et ne se promenait jamais seule. She was always well-behaved and never went for a walk alone.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

When to use Passé Composé?

Once again, Passé Composé is is used to describe specific events that happened in the past, but it can also be used when describing activities and events that happened as a one-off or series of events, e.g.

Un jour, ses parents sont sortis et elle a visité le château. One day, her parent went out and she checked out the castle.

Elle s'est piqué le doigt, a crié, est tombée et s'est endormie. She pricked her finger, screamed, fell, and fell asleep.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Hello! I hope that this helped you guys understand the difference between Imparfait and Passé Composé a little bit better :)

I plan on doing a "How To Form" on these two sometime in the future however I'm not sure when it'll be posted.

Au revoir!

[lovinmybaguettes]

Bonjour ! Je pense que j'ai oublié tout de ce truc (français) ... Honnétement, ça ne va pas bien maintenant, mdr :,D Je suis en train de faire mon devoir online, euh ... Je suis crevé. Comme est-ce que il faut faire les conjugaisons passé composé ? Je sais que je dois inclure é(e), mais pourquoi est-ce que il y a "s" de pluriel occasionellement ? Je ne retenis pas. (Et pourquoi est-ce que il faut inclure un espace avant "!" et "?" ?) Merci ! Ton blog est super !

Bonjour ! Merci beaucoup pour le compliment :D Ton français n’est vraiment pas si mal. Et pense bien à te reposer quand tu es trop fatigué !!

Alors, pour le passé composé, petit rappel des règles de base :

- avec l’auxiliaire être, on accorde toujours. Ça veut dire qu’il faut rajouter un “e” si le sujet est féminin, et le “s” du pluriel est tout simplement là lorsque le sujet est pluriel !

- avec l’auxiliaire avoir, on n’accorde que si le complément d’objet direct (= le COD) se trouve devant le sujet (on n’accorde pas si c’est un COI = complément d’objet indirect).

Quelques exemples :

Il est fatigué vs. Elle est fatiguée vs. Ils sont fatigués. vs. Elles sont fatiguées.

J’ai mangé la pomme (la pomme is the complement) vs. Je l’ai mangée (l’ is before the verb and replaces la pomme, so you add an ‘e’)

Pour l’espace avant la ponctuation : je pense que c’est pour que ce soit plus lisible, car en mettant un espace avant ‘?’, ‘!’, ‘:’ et ‘;’, on voit mieux les mots et l’ensemble de la phrase, c’est plus clair. Même maintenant, quand je lis des choses en anglais, la ponctuation collée au dernier mot de la phrase me perturbe lol. D’ailleurs, avant ‘…’, pas besoin d’espace :)

[xrafstar]

made a zine with friends