In today’s lesson we’ll have a look at the French word été. This word has several meanings. One translation of été is “summer”. Été is also the past participle for the verb être (to be). Hence, j’ai été translates to “I was” or “I have been”. Towards the end of the post we have a fun example sentence which uses both meanings of the word. Keep reading!
été
summer, was, have been
Word origin
According to Wiktionary.org, The French word été (summer) comes from esté in old French, which in turn comes from aestas in Latin. As for the past participle of the verb être (to be), été comes from the Old French esté, which in turn came from the Latin verb stare (to remain standing).
Être passé composé
The following are the translations of été as it appears in the passé composé of être (to be). This lesson on our site explains the passé composé, a commonly used French past tense.
J’ai été I was, I have been
Tu as été You were, you have been (singular, informal)
Il, elle a été He, she was, has been
Nous avons été We were, have been
Vous avez été You were, have been (plural, formal)
Ils, elles ont été They were, have been
Example sentences
For these first two sentences, été translates to “summer”. “Les Jeux” refers to les Jeux olympiques (the Olympic Games).
Préférez-vous regarder les Jeux d’été ou les Jeux d’hiver ?
Do you prefer to watch the Winter Games or the Summer Games?
This example sentence makes use of the masculine noun projet, which translates to both “plan” and “project”.
Quels sont vos projets pour l’été prochain ?
What are your plans for next summer?
This next sentence is in the passé composé because the time of the past event is being specified: hier (yesterday). J’étais also means “I was”. This is in the imperfect tense (l’imparfait) and is used for past events which occur at unspecified times. This lesson on our site covers the verb rester (to stay) and this lesson covers the preposition chez (at the home of).
Je n’ai pas été à l’école hier. Je suis resté chez moi.
I wasn’t at school yesterday. I stayed home.
This final example sentence uses both meanings of été: summer and was. The verb pourrir means “to rot” and one translation of the related adjective, pourri, is “lousy”. This lesson on our site covers an vs. année, the two words for “year” in French.
Cette année l’été a été pourri.
The summer was lousy this year.
Conclusion
Et voilà ! Now you know how to use été (summer, was, have been) in French! Now check out our lesson covering the related word soit, which also means “be” and is the subjunctive form of être. We also suggest checking out French Today’s post covering the conjugation of être. In this post, native speaker and Parisian, Camille, guides you through ten useful tenses and includes 450+ audio files!
