Why learn a tense nobody speaks?
The passé simple is the narrative past of written French. It lives in novels, fairy tales, biographies and history books – anywhere a story is told about events that are finished and sealed off from the present. Nobody uses it in conversation: speaking, you say j'ai ouvert la porte; in a novel it becomes j'ouvris la porte. The meaning is identical; only the register changes.
Aim for recognition, not production. English has only one simple past, so both j'ouvris and j'ai ouvert come out as I opened; the difference is register, not meaning.
What storytelling sounds like in French
Il ouvrit la porte et entra sans un mot.
He opened the door and walked in without a word.
Elle se leva et sortit de la pièce.
She stood up and left the room.
Ils arrivèrent au village à la tombée de la nuit.
They reached the village at nightfall.
The three sets of endings
Which set a verb takes depends mostly on its infinitive: -er verbs take -ai, most -ir and -re verbs take -is (il vendit like il finit). The third set, in -us, belongs to a group of irregular verbs.
The three sets compared
| Person | parler | finir | vouloir |
|---|---|---|---|
| je | parlai | finis | voulus |
| tu | parlas | finis | voulus |
| il / elle / on | parla | finit | voulut |
| nous | parlâmes | finîmes | voulûmes |
| vous | parlâtes | finîtes | voulûtes |
| ils / elles | parlèrent | finirent | voulurent |
parler (to speak), finir (to finish), vouloir (to want)
In every set only nous and vous wear a hat: nous parlâmes, vous finîtes, nous voulûmes. Stories are mostly told in the third person, so il/elle and ils/elles are the forms you meet most.
All three sets in context
Elle chercha son nom dans la liste.
She looked for her name on the list.
Personne ne répondit à sa question.
Nobody answered her question.
Il voulut partir tout de suite.
He wanted to leave straight away.
The irregular forms you actually meet
Learn the most common irregular verbs in the third person. Often the past participle gives away the vowel: pu → put, pris → prit, mis → mit.
Key verbs in the third person
| Infinitive | il / elle | ils / elles |
|---|---|---|
| être | fut | furent |
| avoir | eut | eurent |
| faire | fit | firent |
| venir | vint | vinrent |
| voir | vit | virent |
| prendre | prit | prirent |
| dire | dit | dirent |
| mettre | mit | mirent |
| naître | naquit | naquirent |
| mourir | mourut | moururent |
| pouvoir | put | purent |
| savoir | sut | surent |
| devoir | dut | durent |
infinitive, il/elle, ils/elles
Irregular forms in a text
Le roi mourut en 1715.
The king died in 1715.
Victor Hugo naquit en 1802.
Victor Hugo was born in 1802.
Elle prit la lettre et la mit dans sa poche.
She took the letter and put it in her pocket.
Ils furent très surpris de le voir.
They were very surprised to see him.
Passé simple and imparfait
In narrative the two tenses work together, just like passé composé and imparfait in conversation: the imparfait paints the background, the passé simple moves the action forward.
Background and action
La nuit tombait quand ils arrivèrent au village.
Night was falling when they reached the village.
Il pleuvait; soudain, quelqu'un frappa à la porte.
It was raining; suddenly someone knocked at the door.
Its companion - the passé antérieur
In time clauses with quand, lorsque, dès que, après que whose main clause is in the passé simple, literary texts use the passé antérieur instead of the plus-que-parfait for what was finished immediately before.
How it is built
Passé antérieur in a sentence
Quand il eut fini son discours, la salle applaudit.
When he had finished his speech, the room applauded.
Dès qu'elle fut partie, le silence retomba.
As soon as she had left, silence fell again.
