The French passé récent or recent past tense is used describe events which just occurred. It is formed by combining the present tense of the verb venir (to come) with the preposition de followed by an infinitive. For example, je viens de manger (I just ate).
What is the French passé récent tense
The passé récent equates to “just + verb” in English. The usage of the this tense requires knowing how to conjugate venir (to come) in the present tense and the grammatical construction is as follows:
venir in present tense + de + Infinitive
Passé récent example sentences
Now that we have the grammatical structure down, let’s go through a few example sentences.
Je viens de manger.
I just ate.
Il vient de commencer.
He just started.
In this second example sentence, “Il vient de commencer“ (he just started) could refer to a person doing activity or it would refer to the weather.
For example, “Il vient de commencer à étudier le français“ (He just stated studying French). For the weather, you could say, “Il vient de commencer à neiger“ (It just started snowing).
Nous venons d’acheter une nouvelle voiture.
We just bought a car.
I just drank a coffee.
Note that the passé récent cannot be used in the negation. For example, you cannot say “Je ne viens pas de manger” (I didn’t just eat). For the negation, simply use the passé composé: “Je n’ai pas mangé” (I didn’t eat).
One last example…
Tu viens de finir cette leçon.
You just finished this lesson.
Related lessons
- Subjunctive mood
- Passé simple tense
- Plus-que-parfait tense
- Imperative mood
- Imperfect tense
- Conditional tense
- Future tense
French grammar | Lessons by David Issokson
