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The passé composé is formed by the auxiliary verb, usually the avoir auxiliary, followed by the past participle.The construction is parallel to that of the present perfect (there is no difference in French between perfect and non-perfect forms - although there is an important difference in usage between the perfect tense and the imperfect tense).
Aside from être and avoir (considered categories unto themselves), French verbs are traditionally [1] grouped into three conjugation classes (groupes): . The first conjugation class consists of all verbs with infinitives ending in -er, except for the irregular verb aller and (by some accounts) the irregular verbs envoyer and renvoyer; [2] the verbs in this conjugation, which together ...
Imperfect (imparfait), simple; Pluperfect (plus-que-parfait): literally "more than perfect", formed with an auxiliary verb in the imperfect; Simple past (passé simple) Conventionally used only in written language (especially in literature) or in extremely formal speech. Past perfect (passé antérieur): formed with an auxiliary verb in the ...
Imperfect meanings in English are expressed in different ways depending on whether the event is continuous or habitual.. For a continuous action (one that was in progress at a particular time in the past), the past progressive (past continuous) form is used, as in "I was eating"; "They were running fast."
Past imperfective (imparfait) e.g. Je mangeais (I was eating) Past historic or Simple past (passé simple) e.g. Je mangeai (I ate) (literary only) Pluperfect (Plus que parfait) e.g. J'avais mangé (I had eaten [before another event in the past]) Recent past (passé recent) e.g. Je viens de manger (I just ate or I have just eaten)
The passé simple (French pronunciation: [pase sɛ̃pl], simple past, preterite, or past historic), also called the passé défini (IPA: [pase defini], definite past), is the literary equivalent of the passé composé in the French language, used predominantly in formal writing (including history and literature) and formal speech.
The paradigms for tenses in Ancient Greek are similar to the ones in Latin, but with a three-way aspect contrast in the past: the aorist, the perfect and the imperfect. Both aorist and imperfect verbs can represent a past event: through contrast, the imperfect verb often implies a longer duration (e.g. 'they urged him' vs. 'they persuaded him').
Other verb forms used in Ancient Greek to refer to past circumstances were the aorist, which was used simply to report past events (for example in narrative), and the imperfect. For details of the formation and use of the Greek perfect, see Ancient Greek verbs (see also Ancient Greek grammar § Dependence of moods and tenses).