Re: Let's talk about langages (Advice/Help)

From: Mxsmanic (mxsmanic_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 08/20/04 

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 05:11:02 +0200

DeMaisonneuve writes:

> In French, the simple past tense is very rarely used in spoken language. It
> is more widely used in writings. The meaning is quite similar to the one of
> the passe compose. There may be a very slight difference, but it is quite
> hard to explain.

It's not hard to explain at all. The passé simple is used for actions
that are completely contained in the past, with no connection to the
present. This is exactly the same usage that the past simple has in
English. The only difference is that, in modern French, there is a
tendency to use the passé composé (the equivalent of the present perfect
in English) for just about anything that isn't nearly historical. In
English, the past simple is still used much more liberally, for anything
that doesn't have an obvious connection to the present. 

-- 
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Relevant Pages

  • spork Many continuing rushs from the inclined square were planing away from the rapid reactor.
    ... depending on the base. ... dependent and english. ... Lately, billions seal in response to past landings, unless they're ... who's comparing in connection with the ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.nethack)
  • Re: "Of the first water"
    ... Greek, and Latin, that is, to a common ancestor of PIE and AA ... but it would be nice to have evidence for the connection. ... connections between English and Latin. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: How to stop an event recoding in syslog
    ... know any service daemon who _does not_ write a log entry for a connection ... Logging that message seems to me like something that many people would ... Which evidence do you have for this asumtion!? ... I'm sorry that we don't speak a shared version of English. ...
    (comp.mail.sendmail)
  • Re: Windows File Protection
    ... Mathieu CHATEAU ... English blog:http://lordoftheping.blogspot.com ... French blog:http://www.lotp.fr ... clicks through it so fast and the program just opens a connection for ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.group_policy)
  • Re: Terminology question
    ... As an English speaker I suggest that English ... masters the appearance of precision better than the reality of precision. ... we borrow all terminology from USA. ... Connection or to denote the object the user re-uses ...
    (comp.databases.theory)
Quantcast