he French Recent Past Passé Récent

The French recent past is a verb construction thats used to express something that just happened.  It is called the  passà © rà ©cent. Avoid the temptation to omit the accents; without them, the phrase wont read properly. Remembrance of Things Past Like the futur proche, or near future, in French, the recent past tense, or passà © rà ©cent,  expresses the fluidity of time. There is the composed past, or passe composà ©, a specific action that was begun and completed in the past, such as: Je suis allà © en France.   I went to France. In French, you can also use the precise imperfect, or limparfait, which describes repeated actions, an ongoing action, or a state of being in the past with no specified conclusion, such as: Jallais en France. I was going to France. Then, there is the passà © rà ©cent, which is something specific that just happened, or something that happened even closer to the present than the passe composà ©, such as: Je viens de manger. I just ate. Understanding when and how to use the various options for the past tense is vital for those studying French. Forming the Recent Past Create a verb in the recent past, or passà © rà ©cent, by combining the present tense of venir (to come) with the preposition de  and the action verbs infinitive,  a single word  that  is the basic, unconjugated form of the verb.   This makes  the  passà © rà ©cent  one of the easiest tenses to construct in the French language, and, as such, difficult to get wrong. That said, it does require the user to correctly spell the present tense of  venir. The Present Tense of "Venir" To be able to use a verb  such as  venir  in the recent past, its vital to first learn how to conjugate it in the present. Since  venir  starts with a v, there is no elision. Note, however, that the present indicative (je viens) rhymes with  bien, whereas the simple past (je vins) rhymes with vin (actually, its pronounced exactly the same way). Je  viens   I comeTu  viens You comeIl  vient He comesNous  venons We comeVous  venez You (plural) comeIls  viennent They come Using"Venir" in the Recent Past To use venir  in the simple past, combine the present tense of  the verb with de and an infinitive, as these examples show:   Je viens de voir Luc.   I just saw Luc.  Il vient darriver.   He just arrived.  Nous venons de prà ©parer le repas.   We just prepared the meal. Remember that knowing how to use  the  passà © rà ©cent  of verbs such as venir is quite  useful, but it can apply only to things you have  just  done. The "Passà © Composà ©" Dont confuse  passà © rà ©cent with  passà © composà ©, the compound past.​  The  passà © composà ©Ã‚  is the most common French past tense, often used in conjunction with the  imperfect. It corresponds most closely in English with the simple  past.  Examples of the  passà © composà ©Ã‚  would be: As-tu  Ãƒ ©tudià ©Ã‚  ce  weekend?   Did you study this weekend?​Ils  ont  dà ©jà   mangà ©.   They have already eaten. As noted, these are actions that were begun and completed in the past.