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7.1.6 The passé simple

There is another past tense that is known also in other languages. If you know Spanish there is the indefinido, if you know Italian, there is passato remoto, French has passé simple. However there is a big difference, the passé simple is only used sublime literature language. The other language - in comparison - still use this form actively.

In the formation of the passé simple we have to differentiate between verbs ending in -er, -ir, -re and -oir. Many forms are irregular, especially verbs of type 2 ending in -re, -oir have no regular form.

The passé simple is formed with the stem of the present forms adding the endings accordingly.

Overview

Taking only the endings of the above table we get the following overview:

Overview
Person	-er	-ir	-re		-oir
			Type 1	Type 2	Type 1	Type 2
je	ai	is	is	us	us	is
tu	as	is	is	us	us	is
il / elle	a	it	it	ut	ut	it
nous	âmes	îmes	îmes	ûmes	ûmes	îmes
vous	âtes	îtes	îtes	ûtes	ûtes	îtes
ils / elles	èrent	irent	irent	urent	urent	irent

The passé simple knows many irregular verbs, especially the verb être is irregular, therefore we show it here in particular. The translation is only a help for us, since there is no 100% equivalent in English.

être
	je fus	I was
	tu fus	you were
	il / elle fut	he / she was
	nous fûmes	we were
	vous fûtes	you were
	ils / elles furent	they were

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