Le Café des flamants roses, le jardin des licornes

www.gransnet.com/forums/chat/1299051-Le-Caf-des-flamants-roses-allons-nous-crire-une-histoire-au-pass-historique

I have now found these, as a start.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterite

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterite#French

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass%C3%A9_simple

So, as it is a dream, if the spider speaks, which tense is to be used for what the spider says, given that the main story is in the past historic please?

ElderlyPerson

So, as it is a dream, if the spider speaks, which tense is to be used for what the spider says, given that the main story is in the past historic please?

I'm guessing if you put his words in inverted commas the spider can speak normally (!) and just follow it with répondit-il in the PH.

Merci.

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Reported - yawn

Why? It is a harmless thread.

No EP it was a spam post - no reflection on the thread.

Ah, I had not followed the link as not being a girl I thought it meant it was a forum for girl students to chat with each other.

There was absolutely no connection with the thread and the link in blue was a bit of giveaway

www.thoughtco.com/dire-to-say-tell-1370149

So it seems that

dit-elle

is needed for the spider speaking in the past historic.

I think.

Oooh yes, it is a she bien sûr!

I added the following to the story this morning.

Je lus le poème à l'araignée et aux licornes.

Dans un château
deux canards
mangèrent un gâteau
et des épinards

The following were helpful, as well as Google translate.

study.com/academy/lesson/lire-in-french-definition-conjugation.html

www.lawlessfrench.com/verb-conjugations/lire/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass%C3%A9_simple

I find that Google translate is good for vocabulary and finding the gender of a word, will translate the past historic into English but does convert the past historic into another tense in French if it gets the chance.

Please correct any mistakes that I have made as I want to learn.

>> Dans la clairière, il y eut beaucoup de livres.

> “Il y avait - the correct form of the wrong verb is still wrong.

I don't understand what is wrong. Can we discuss this please.

There seem to be two intertwined issues.

Start with the present tense

Il y a ...

First issue: How does

Il y a

work if one changes the tense,

so the known is

There are ...

How do were get

There were ....

and

There will be

please?

Is the 'a' in 'Il y a' part of avoir, yet the meaning seems to be part of 'to be'.

So issue 2 is, building upon issue 1, which verb is used in the past historic, or should it not be in the past historic.

This mixing of tenses when the past historic is used is either new to me or I have forgotten.

I got the

eut

from

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass%C3%A9_simple

I have tried to understand the comment.

Can someone explain please?

You are totally correct. For description you should use the imperfect. Il y avait, is spot on, even if the Passé Simple is used for the narrative.

If you really want to learn French- just forget about the Passé Simple. It is archaïc and not used any more, so why makes things complicated with useless stuff. If it is for fun, as a bit of a joke, then it's OK to use it, but only if.

The passé historique is not used for description but for “completed actions” in the past, and “there is, there are, there was, there were” are descriptive so you would use “il y a/il y avait” and “ il y aura” in the future

So I now appreciate that it was the wrong tense, but why was it the wrong verb?

My grandchildren have a pile of story books and lots of them are in the passé historique so learning it isn't a useless exercise.

ElderlyPerson

So I now appreciate that it was the wrong tense, but why was it the wrong verb?

I meant the wrong form of the verb

Kali2

If you really want to learn French- just forget about the Passé Simple. It is archaïc and not used any more, so why makes things complicated with useless stuff. If it is for fun, as a bit of a joke, then it's OK to use it, but only if.

It is certainly not a joke.

Fun, yes, but also to explore the classical style.

But was the tense used in French novels in the past?

For example, did Alexandre Dumas use the past historic?

MawBe

ElderlyPerson

So I now appreciate that it was the wrong tense, but why was it the wrong verb?

I meant the wrong form of the verb

Ah right, thank you for clarifying.