7. Je suis allé à Paris l’année dernière. (I went to Paris last year)

Module 7 Summary

In Module 7, you learned how to talk about time, past events, entertainment, cultural activities, ability, obligation, and nonspecific people or things. You began by learning how to ask how long and since when with depuis combien de temps and depuis quand. You practiced answering with depuis + time period and depuis + starting point, such as J’étudie le français depuis un an and J’habite ici depuis 2024.

You then learned how to narrate a series of past events using the passé composé. You practiced sequencing words such as d’abord, ensuite, après, puis, and enfin, and used them to describe completed actions in the past.

You expanded your vocabulary for entertainment and cultural events, including un concert, un film, un spectacle, une exposition, une pièce de théâtre, un festival, un musée, and un théâtre. You learned how to say what you are going to see, what you attended, and how the event was with expressions such as Je vais voir un film, J’ai vu un spectacle, and C’était excellent.

You also studied assister à and voir. You learned that assister à means to attend, not to help, and that voir is an irregular verb with forms such as je vois, nous voyons, and vous voyez.

In the grammar sections, you learned four important verbs: vouloir, pouvoir, devoir, and savoir. You practiced using them with infinitives to say what someone wants to do, can do, must do, or knows how to do. You also learned how to place y, en, and direct object pronouns before an infinitive in two-verb structures, such as je veux y aller, je peux les acheter, and je veux en parler.

You then learned indefinite pronouns: quelqu’un, quelque chose, and quelque part, along with their negative forms ne… personne, ne… rien, and ne… nulle part.

Finally, you deepened your understanding of the passé composé, especially the use of être as an auxiliary. You practiced forms such as je suis allé(e), elle est sortie, nous sommes arrivés, and ils sont revenus, and learned that the past participle agrees with the subject when être is used.

By the end of Module 7, you should be able to ask how long something has been happening, narrate past events, talk about entertainment and cultural events, use vouloir, pouvoir, devoir, and savoir, use pronouns with two verbs, refer to nonspecific people, things, and places, and form the passé composé with both avoir and être.

Module 8 will build on these skills by helping you ask for advice and recommendations, name parts of the body, talk about daily routines with pronominal verbs, use additional question forms, and express past actions with pronominal verbs in the passé composé.