📖LearnModule 12 · Lesson 2 of 30Proficient User · CEFR C1, completedUnit 1 · La langue littéraire
Les formes qui surprennent
Module 12 of the free French course (CEFR C1, completed), lesson 2 of 30: Most simple pasts are guessable, a dozen are not. On this page: 8 words with their genders and respellings, the rule, a watch-out line, the conjugation table and the audio — the study notes behind the workbook's lesson 2.
The words
French
English
Say it
il vécut
he lived (literary)
eel vay-KEW
il naquit
he was born (literary)
eel nah-KEE
il mourut
he died (literary)
eel moo-REW
il sut
he knew (literary)
eel SEW
il dut
he had to (literary)
eel DEW
la liste de lecture
the reading list
lah leest duh lehk-TEWR
le siècle
the century
luh SYEHKL
imprévisible
unpredictable
a(n)-pray-vee-ZEEBL
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
Hear the words
Each word is read twice — say it back in the gap. Computer-generated voice; credits on the course page.
La règle · The rule
Most simple pasts are guessable; a dozen are not, and those dozen are the ones novels are made of. Il fut, il eut, il fit, il vint, il prit, il put, il voulut, il sut, il vécut, il naquit, il mourut, il dut.
Et aussi · And also
Learn them as a reading list, not a conjugation. You will meet each one within twenty pages of any nineteenth-century novel, and never once need to produce it.
Attention · Watch out
il vécut is vivre, il naquit is naître, il mourut is mourir — a reading list, not a conjugation. il sut is savoir and il dut is devoir: two forms of three letters each.
naître, passé composé — the table
il est né · elle est née · ils sont nés · elles sont nées
mourir, passé composé — the table
il est mort · elle est morte · ils sont morts · elles sont mortes
Do it now — on paper
Say all 8 words aloud twice from the respelling, then once from the French spelling alone — begin with il vécut.
Copy every word with its accents on paper; then cover the English column and write each meaning back from the French.
Write out naître, passé composé and mourir, passé composé in full from memory, every person, and check each form against the table above.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The French Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Keep these words
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.