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Assimil vs. Alliance Française | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| mka Newbie United States Joined 5137 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 5 26 November 2010 at 11:08pm | IP Logged |
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I'm taking classes at the Alliance Française in my town in Mexico, and using 1940 French Without Toil and the FSI course in addition. The 1940 FWT uses a lot of the simple past tense, whereas the Alliance Française stresses the passé composé, saying that the simple past tense is no longer common in France. Any native French speakers confirm current usage in France now?
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| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6555 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 2 of 5 26 November 2010 at 11:25pm | IP Logged |
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I'm not French, but:
passé composé - everyday speech passé simple - literature 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5386 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 5 29 November 2010 at 4:48pm | IP Logged |
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Except in very formal situations, I'd say no one uses passé simple anymore, and I'd even venture that the average native speaker would not be confortable at all using it either. I would encourage you to expose yourself to it for comprehension, but that's it.
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| Frieza Triglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5358 days ago 102 posts - 137 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German | Message 4 of 5 29 November 2010 at 11:06pm | IP Logged |
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I had six years of French in school and we never learnt the 'passé simple'.
I've never heard it either (and there was a time when I did watch quite a bit of French TV) although I have seen it in writing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spiderkat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5817 days ago 175 posts - 248 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 5 30 November 2010 at 12:25am | IP Logged |
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Even for those, like me for instance, who learnt the "passé simple" in school and used it decades ago, the "passé composé" has become more natural to be used nowadays in the everyday life.
It doesn't mean that the "passé simple" has to be forgotten. It's a beautiful tense, at least to me, and brings this little something in the reading that the "passé composé" doesn't. But as Arekkusu wrote, and I agree with him, you should learn it in a passive way because you'll later encounter it in books. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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