Hi so i am a little bit confused by this

Hi so i am a little bit confused by this term:

Mais je fus bien surpris = But i was very suprised.

Basically i don’t understand the word fus here. I would have thought the correct way to say this would be:

Mais, j’etais bien surpris.

So what is the difference? Is it a different tense?

Thanks for you time :slight_smile:

The first one: Mais je fus bien surpris. It is in the passe simple, but in the passive conjugation.
The second one: Mais, j’etais bien surpris. It is in the Imparfait de l’indicatif also in the passive conjugation.

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Technically they are different tenses: passe simple (fus) and passe imparfait (etais).

But they say the two mean exactly the same thing.

You use passe imparfait in real life but literary texts may use passe simple where you would expect passe imparfait.

I hear for foreigners, one has to learn to use passe imparfait but not passe simple, since you’ll only see it in literature.

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Correct explanation by the OzzyHellback and userstk.

Regarding Le petit prince, it’s funny, because a month ago I was reading it… but in japanese!
Very good book to start with. Lots of repetitions, so the vocabs sinks in.

They don’t exactly mean the same. The two tenses are different. The imparfait (j’étais) implies that the action lasts some time, whereas the passé simple (je fus) describes a punctual action.

In spoken language we use the passé composé (j’ai été) instead of the passé simple (je fus), which is (almost) only used in books.

I’ve never read Le Petit Prince in French, but I did in Spanish and Portuguese. It’s indeed a good book to start with!

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Thanks for the correction, Jorgis.

I had the the equivalency mixed up, probably because pass simple looks so much like passe imparfaiit structurally.

The tenses in French is a bit of a challenge for us learners :slight_smile:

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Indeed it has been very enjoyable so far. I’ve only worked through the first 2 lessons, but I’m really enjoying the story. The fact that it is humorous also helps me to stay focused as well.

Ah that makes sense, thank you :slight_smile: I wasn’t aware of a third form of the past tense, having only come across the Imparfait and the passe compose so far.

I see. Thanks for the clarification there on the usage. It’s interesting to see how it’s only really used in text but not spoken language :slight_smile:

Indeed the tenses are a bit of a challenge, but we should stick at it! :slight_smile: All the best with your learning!

Thanks for the reply :slight_smile: So in terms of spoken french I see I only really need to know the passe compose and the imparfait, and the passe simple is for written text.
I’m really enjoying the book so far!

Yes, it’s a different tense : le passé simple, here le passé simple for “être”. This tense is used only in writing, novels or narrative written texts.
It corresponds to the passé composé in the written field.

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