Why You Should Never Say “Je fus” in Spoken French

So, let’s have some fun with French grammar. You can practice with me right now at home while watching this video behind your screen.
Let’s get used to hearing some “passé simple” so you can understand what’s happening when they use it in formal French. But let’s also practice le passé composé together – so you can become more confident in the everyday French we speak in real conversations.

1/6 Elle mangea.
It’s in le passé simple. You might wonder why there’s a silent “e” in there, and that’s a good question. It’s there to remind you that it’s a soft “g” sound, as in “giraffe”, and not a hard “g” as in “gift.”
And what do you think it means?
Yes, it simply means, “She ate”! As in “Elle mangea du fromage.” = She ate some cheese.
But we would never say it this way in everyday spoken French. How would you say that in le passé composé? We would use “Elle”, of course. Then “avoir” in the present, then the past participle for “manger.” We mix that, and we get…
Elle a mangé. = She ate.
“Elle” for “she”, “a” for “avoir” in the present, and “mangé” for the past participle.

2/6 Je fus timide.
Je fus timide. = I’ve been shy, or I used to be shy.
How would you say that in everyday spoken French?
You might already have the answer. Or do you need a refresher on past participles? The one for “être” is “été.” Yes, it’s like l’été, summer! And our sentence finally makes:
J’ai (= Je + “ai”, avoir) été (past participle) timide.
J’ai été timide. ! = I’ve been shy, I used to be shy.
You can also add any other adjective, from superbe = incredible to horrible = terrible.

3/6 How would you write in passé simple the sentence “You wrote a letter.”?
Here, we’ll use the regular verb écrire = to write. What do you think the passé simple conjugation looks like for “tu”? It’s:
– Tu écrivis une lettre. = You wrote a letter.
How would you say that in the passé composé? It’s pretty straightforward. The past participle for écrire is simply écrit, written. So it makes…
– Tu as écrit une lettre. = You wrote a letter.
You can pause the video and try the same exercise with the verb rédiger = to edit and write instead of écrire. It’s just like manger!
Here are the answers:
– Tu rédigeas une lettre.
– Tu as rédigé une lettre.

4/6 What do you think is the conjugation of that sentence, “Nous partons”, in le passé simple? It is…
Nous partîmes. = We left.
How would we say that in le passé composé, though? Do you remember the past participle of partir? We’ve seen it together earlier: it’s parti.
But there’s one more thing here: this verb, partir, uses “être” for le passé composé. So what do you think it looks like with “nous”? It is…
Nous sommes partis.
It’s become Nous sommes, the present conjugation for “we are.” More importantly, you can notice that “partis” has a silent “s” here; it’s in the plural. That’s the special rule of passé composé: for the few verbs that use “être” instead of “avoir”, the past participle agrees with the subject.
By the way, in real, everyday spoken French, we would not use “Nous” at all. Instead, we’d say: On est partis. = We left with the informal pronoun for “we”.

The agreement of the past participle:

• “On est parti.” is allowed because “on” is third-person singular;
• “On est partis.” is allowed because it’s used as the plural “we” with other people.

Now, we’ll see the sentences that all mean the same thing, but from the most to the less formal ones:

• Nous nous trompâmes. (le passé simple)
• Nous nous sommes trompés. (le passé composé, with the “nous” pronoun)
• On s’est trompés. (le passé composé, with “on” pronoun instead of “nous”)
• On s’est gourés / plantés. (le passé composé with “on” pronoun and the slang verbs “se planter”, “se gourer”)

Click here to learn more:
Why You Should Never Say “Nous” in Spoken French (Improve Your Fluency)

Le truc en plus:
Le parti = the (political) party, the side of a debate.
Une fête = a party.

5/6 Le passé simple is Vous allâtes au marché. = You went to the market. with the verb aller = to go.
The passé simple with “Nous” and “vous” always sounds quite weird to a French person. We rarely find sentences like “Nous partîmes” or “vous allâtes.” We primarily use passé simple for narration in novels, mainly in the third person, like “He” or “They.” But the characters themselves don’t use it often!
So how would you say that, “vous allâtes au marché,” in everyday passé composé instead? It uses “être”, again…It’s:
Vous êtes allés au marché ! = You went to the market.
Or if only women are in the group, we would add a silent “e” to make the past participle feminine: Vous êtes allées au marché!

Allé agrees with the subject and becomes plural or feminine or masculine because with “aller”, we use “être” instead of “avoir”! And the same thing happens with “elles”, the feminine “‘they”, with the verb aller = to go.
Elles allèrent au marché. = They went to the market, they visited the market.

How would you say that in le passé composé ? We use “être”, so it makes… Elles sont allées au marché.
We simply use “être” with the plural “They”, and the past participle “allé” becomes allées to become plural and feminine.

6/6 Let’s try our hand at one last sentence: Ils voulurent déménager. = They then wanted to move, to live somewhere else.
How would you say that in le passé composé ? “Vouloir” (= to want) uses “avoir” for its passé composé, and becomes voulu in the past participle. So, it’s…
Ils ont voulu déménager. = They wanted to move!