Learning French language

@Boubou et Lyssa : Thank you both alot , I will try to do more practicing

I have a very simple question about French tenses (actually embarrassingly simple lol).

"Ils sont visité le musée Picasso et au parc Güell" Now is this "They have visited" or "They visited"? Because I came across simple past structures that looked quite the same with the present perfect tense and I kinda got confused. My book is all in French and as I'm studying higher level than what they show us at school, it's always nice to be a bit ahead, I'm having trouble understanding it completely. Can someone explain the use of these tenses in examples, if possible?

Originally Posted by Derin89

I have a very simple question about French tenses (actually embarrassingly simple lol).

"Ils sont visité le musée Picasso et au parc Güell" Now is this "They have visited" or "They visited"? Because I came across simple past structures that looked quite the same with the present perfect tense and I kinda got confused. My book is all in French and as I'm studying higher level than what they show us at school, it's always nice to be a bit ahead, I'm having trouble understanding it completely. Can someone explain the use of these tenses in examples, if possible?

Hi Derin89!
First of all, it's not correct to say "Ils sont visité"
You can either say

- Ils ont visité (they have visited)
OR
- Ils sont allés au musée ... (They have gone at the museum)

because as Lyssa explained above, in this case verb visiter only shows an action you have made in the past rather than a movement (go, arrive etc.)

As for your question, whether
"ils ont visité" means "they visited" or "they have visited" I am not sure about the exact distinction between them in french.
Some expert has to help us here!

You got it right boubou

Well, in French there are more past tenses than in English, so it's even difficult for myself sometimes to choose the right one when I have to translate it from English to French..

It always depends on the context, you can use passé composé (ont visité), passé simple (visitèrent) or imparfait (visitaient) for they visited or they have visited, but you have to consider the "context":
- first of all, passé composé is for something closer to the present than passé simple and imparfait.
- passé composé refers to a precise moment that is occasional, a succession of events in the past, it's used for a narrative description. => exemple: Hier, j'ai vu un ami. Il y a deux semaines je suis allée au lycée et j'ai passé des épreuves.
- passé simple is used for the action that is lived in the past as if it were present. If you want to explain how an action was developped in the past from the beginning to the end or for a dialogue that took place in the past. => Il partit à la rencontre de sa femme et lui expliqua son problème: "Je suis malade" dit-il
- imparfait is to describe a continual action in the past. It's something that lasts, it doesn't have a precise end like passé simple where the action is accomplished. It's used for the narration & the description in a tale or something that happened to long ago to use passé composé. => Il semblait contrarié par ce qu'il venait d'apprendre. Il était une fois...


[ I think that's enough for once, but there are other past times like plus-que-parfait & so on, if you want some more information about them just ask ]

Ah right boubou thanks, "Ils ont visité" I made a mistake when copying it from the book =) On reading more, I think my best bet would be to deduce the meaning of the sentence depending on the context, as Lyssa said, whether simple past or present perfect is implied, in equivalence to English that is.

Lyssa thank you for your explanation, albeit what you've written is way above my humble knowledge of French language right now. After reading your post I made some research on the internet, and wow, I didn't know there were so many tenses in French.
---------------------------------------------------------------
As for the context, let's see if I understood it right:

"J'ai voyagé en France l'annéee derniere"

I traveled in France last year

but if I turn this to, say

"J'ai voyagé en France plusieurs fois"

or some other group of structures similar to "plusieurs fois" then the meaning can be "I have traveled in France many times", still depending on what follows this sentence cuz it still can be "I traveled in France many times"
----------------------------------------------------
"passé simple is used for the action that is lived in the past as if it were present."

is it like in English, when you're telling a story you pretend as if it is lived in the present to make it more real "Yesterday I step on the road and what do I see? A man is trying to grab an old lady's purse" and I read that this tense is rarely used except for formal writings?

LOL! Yes they're much tenses, some of them aren't used often or just in literature...

For your sentences, I'm not sure which tense would fit better in English actually but that's how I'd put it:

"J'ai voyagé en France l'année derniere" you would rather say "J'ai été en France l'année dernière" (I have been to France last year)

& then "J'ai été en France plusieurs fois" (I have been to France several times)

About passé simple, you use it often for written things, when you talk you rather use passé composé. I never wrote it for 1st & 2nd person plural because it sounds so strange but you can find it in books.

Uhm...I think I'll just stick to passé compose for now =P I want to be ahead of the lessons but perhaps I should know where to stop lol Thanks again!

Allright^^ But it can be easier with passé simple because you don't have to choose between "être" and "avoir" lol

Originally Posted by Lyssa

Bon Appetit => Bon appétit means "enjoy your meal"

I = Je
You = Tu [informal, singular] Vous [formal for one person or plural form ]
When = Quand
How = Comment
Who = Qui
Where = Où
He = Il
She = Elle

How are you?? = Comment ça va?? [ informal ] Comment allez-vous? [formal]

Im fine = ça va/très bien

You look sexy = t'es sexy

Where should we go? = Où devrions-nous aller?


For the pronunciation, I recommand you to listen to some French music, because it's hard to explain XD What's your mother tongue? Maybe there are similar sounds.

Mother tongue is Spanish.


Whats some good French rnb songs I can listen too???

Originally Posted by MasSueltoQueTu

Mother tongue is Spanish.


Whats some good French rnb songs I can listen too???

Hi,
I'm not the expert round here, but I can definately say that I liked Zaho pretty much!
And here's a couple of songs
Zaho - Dima

Zaho - La roue tourne

Zaho - Incomprise

So for the pronunciation,

French "é" is like "e" in Spanish
"ou" is like "u"
"eille" is like "ey" in ley
"aille" is like "ai" in aire
"ai" is like the "e" in cerdo
"e" is "e" muda (if you see what it means? )

Songs I like a lot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFTUIJza7sc (here you can read the lyrics while listen to it )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVmVpMKPKC4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8K8Fctz90U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-igWk...eature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLwKK...eature=channel

awe boubou, your cat picture is sooooo cute! did you edit the picture or did it come up like that?

Originally Posted by IcutepoisonI

awe boubou, your cat picture is sooooo cute! did you edit the picture or did it come up like that?

hehe thank you!
No, I didn't edit the picture! It's real, and it was taken just like this by my mobile phone's camera, some years ago. The eyes are flashing due to the flash mechanism!! :P
This was my cat... very curious cat!

Originally Posted by boubou

hehe thank you!
No, I didn't edit the picture! It's real, and it was taken just like this by my mobile phone's camera, some years ago. The eyes are flashing due to the flash mechanism!! :P
This was my cat... very curious cat!

out of topic , sorry
Now I am sure I met you some other forum before

Originally Posted by Lyssa

You got it right boubou

Well, in French there are more past tenses than in English, so it's even difficult for myself sometimes to choose the right one when I have to translate it from English to French..

It always depends on the context, you can use passé composé (ont visité), passé simple (visitèrent) or imparfait (visitaient) for they visited or they have visited, but you have to consider the "context":
- first of all, passé composé is for something closer to the present than passé simple and imparfait.
- passé composé refers to a precise moment that is occasional, a succession of events in the past, it's used for a narrative description. => exemple: Hier, j'ai vu un ami. Il y a deux semaines je suis allée au lycée et j'ai passé des épreuves.
- passé simple is used for the action that is lived in the past as if it were present. If you want to explain how an action was developped in the past from the beginning to the end or for a dialogue that took place in the past. => Il partit à la rencontre de sa femme et lui expliqua son problème: "Je suis malade" dit-il
- imparfait is to describe a continual action in the past. It's something that lasts, it doesn't have a precise end like passé simple where the action is accomplished. It's used for the narration & the description in a tale or something that happened to long ago to use passé composé. => Il semblait contrarié par ce qu'il venait d'apprendre. Il était une fois...


[ I think that's enough for once, but there are other past times like plus-que-parfait & so on, if you want some more information about them just ask ]

I need to study alot !!!!

You don't have to know it all by heart rightaway, take your time, you'll see it becomes easy ^^

Originally Posted by El raisa

out of topic , sorry
Now I am sure I met you some other forum before

Vraiment? Tu te rappelles ça?
Je ne peux pas me rappeler
Où?

Originally Posted by Lyssa

You don't have to know it all by heart rightaway, take your time, you'll see it becomes easy ^^

Moi aussi, j'ai oublie beaucoup de choses de la langue française
Maintenant j'ai achetée quelques livres (Bescherelle) mais je n'ai pas de temps à tout pour étudier
Alors, j' espère que vous allez m' aider, si je voudrais...

Originally Posted by Lyssa

You don't have to know it all by heart rightaway, take your time, you'll see it becomes easy ^^

I will do my best but summer does give me much time

@ Boubou :
Not sure , but I think somewhere in this thread :
http://www.allthelyrics.com/forum/ga...the-earth.html

I think I asked you about your cat avatar before ?!

Salut~ I'm new in these forums, and I just found here an opportunity to get closer to this language (and why not, to some others).. The fact is that I can't even make a sentence in français, but nothing's impossible, so here I am =D

I was giving a try to internetpolyglot.com but it just shows a lot of isolated words and a few built phrases.. Anyway it did help me a lot with pronunciation, though it's still strange for me and I need to get used to. My mother language is Spanish and we don't have sounds like French "r" in merci.

I've been seeing this word "pas" and wondering if it has a meaning or it's just an auxiliar.. never though French had auxiliars. (yea, I start from 0)

Je ne sais rien! and by the way, how is rien pronounced in spanish letters?

It would help to have the structure of basic sentences in past, present and future, if any of you do that for me =)

Bonne journée!