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Thread: French Authors with easy styles

  1. #31
    Registered User kiki1982's Avatar
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    Yes, that's a good suggestion.

    I started readig Asterix. Tintin is also good, but you need to be into politics and so...

    There are further a lot of other orignally Frenchspeaking series of comic strips.
    One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.

    "Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)

  2. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by kiki1982 View Post
    @JBI:

    I don't think it is impossible to understand. The only thing that does strike is that they used to use passé simple (the equivlent of the subjonctif présent in the past, different to the imparfait (past simple)). For some verbs it is different like for être (fût), but as soon as you have consulted a grammar book or just your ability to understand in context, that problem is over and you get used to it. Most of the verbs have a form similar to the imparfait-form anyway, so that is not really a problem.
    this is not true. passe simple is a literary tense that functions the same grammatically as passe compose (it is "simple" because it does not have an auxilary verb; passe compose is composed of an auxiliary and a past participle). it is not at all related to the subjonctif. it is used in conjuction with imparfait like passe compose is in spoken language.

    for example:
    il pleuvait et tout à coup, je tombai is the exact same as il pleuvait et tout à coup, je suis tombée.

  3. #33
    Registered User kiki1982's Avatar
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    Oh, my God! Thank you for pointing that out! They told me wrongly in school then about the passé simple/Imparfait. Unbelievable, and that in a parly Frenchspeaking country.

    What I was thinking at the 'subjonctif présent'-bit is a riddle to me. I must have been sleeping...
    One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.

    "Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)

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