Verb drill
French passé simple: four ending families and a reading drill
Recognise the four passé simple families with a full table, irregular-stem examples and 14 typed answers. Practise vint, prit, vécut and the circumflex.
- B2
- 14 answers
- Checked all at once
- Accents count
- Learn this in the B2 notebook →
In short
For reading, learn four passé simple families: elle parla, elle finit, elle courut, elle vint. The ending helps you recognise the person, but irregular stems still matter: prendre → il prit, vivre → il vécut. Use the table, then complete the 14-answer drill.
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| Person | parler · a | finir · i | courir · u | venir · in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| je | parlai | finis | courus | vins |
| tu | parlas | finis | courus | vins |
| il / elle / on | parla | finit | courut | vint |
| nous | parlâmes | finîmes | courûmes | vînmes |
| vous | parlâtes | finîtes | courûtes | vîntes |
| ils / elles | parlèrent | finirent | coururent | vinrent |
1 · Write the passé simple form for the person shown
- parler · nous
- finir · vous
- courir · nous
- venir · vous
- prendre · elle
- vivre · il
2 · Complete the events in these short narratives
- Léa la porte et entra. (pousser · passé simple)
- Elle le carnet sur la table. (prendre · passé simple)
- Les enfants jusqu’au pont. (courir · passé simple)
- Leur père les chercher. (venir · passé simple)
- Ils ensemble au village. (revenir · passé simple)
- La lumière soudain plus vive. (être · passé simple)
- Nora une idée. (avoir · passé simple)
- Elle la lettre à voix haute. (lire · passé simple)
How do you form the passé simple?
| Infinitive | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| prendre | il prit | ils prirent |
| faire | elle fit | elles firent |
| lire | il lut | ils lurent |
| vivre | elle vécut | elles vécurent |
| être | il fut | ils furent |
| avoir | elle eut | elles eurent |
Regular -er verbs follow the parler pattern. The other three columns are patterns to recognise, rather than rules for every verb with the same infinitive ending. Courir uses the u family; finir uses the i family. Venir, tenir and their compounds use the in family: elle revint, il tint.
The surrounding story helps you read the tense
La pluie tombait. Léa prit son manteau, ouvrit la porte et courut jusqu’au pont.
The rain was falling. Léa took her coat, opened the door and ran as far as the bridge.
Tombait supplies the background. Prit, ouvrit and courut carry the sequence of events.
Some forms look identical to the present: il finit can mean “he finishes” or “he finished”. Compare il entre et finit son travail with il entra et finit son travail. The surrounding verbs establish the narrative time. In the plural, the contrast is visible: ils finissent in the present, ils finirent in the passé simple.
- Il prenit le livre.Il prit le livre.
Prendre has the stem pr- in this tense: prit, prirent.
- Nous courumes jusqu’au pont.Nous courûmes jusqu’au pont.
Keep the circumflex in the nous and vous forms: courûmes, courûtes.
All six persons occur in written narrative. A first-person narrator can say je partis or nous arrivâmes. The third-person forms are especially useful for following characters, while the full table helps you recognise a narrator speaking as “I” or “we”.