The Focus of This Lesson is a Review of the Past Tenses and Their Use
Ce matin, avec la classe, nous sommes allés visiter les grottes de Lascaux !
"This morning, with the class, we went to visit the Lascaux caves!"

In the first series you learned about two tenses from the mood indicatif: the compound past and imperfect tenses. Before going further, let's have quick review of these two tenses.

The Use of Passé Composé (compound past)

Le passé composé is used to express a punctual event or action done in the past.

The action or event has already ended at the time the speaker is talking about it.

Note that in literature, the simple past is used instead of passé composé, but we will see this point in lesson 10.

1. Je suis allée prendre un café chez mes amis.
   "I had a coffee at my friend's house."
2. Les enfants sont allés se balader en forêt.
   "The children went for a walk in the woods."

Examples from this dialogue:

1. On a vu des peintures préhistoriques, et ensuite, on a mangé des plateaux-repas dans le parc.
   "We saw prehistoric paintings, then we ate tray meals in the park."

Sample Sentences:

1. Elle a mangé tous les gâteaux préparés par Mamie.
   "She ate all the cookies baked by Granny."
2. Ils sont arrivés en retard à notre soirée d'anniversaire.
   "They were late for our birthday party."

The Use of l'imparfait (the imperfect tense)

L'imparfait is used to indicate the circumstances of an event or habit of something that used to be.

This is used when something had not ended yet in the past.

1. A 17h, je prenais un café chez mes amis.
   "At 5 pm, I was having a coffee at my friend's house."
2. J'allais à la piscine quand j'étais enfant.
   "I used to go to the swimming pool when I was a child."

Examples from this dialogue:

1. C'était une bonne journée !
   "It was a great day!"

Sample Sentences:

1. Quand j'étais étudiant, j'allais souvent prendre le café avec les professeurs.
   "When I was a student, I often had coffee with the professors."
2. Nous allions au parc quand nous étions enfants.
   "We used to go to the park when we were children."

Disambiguation

It's quite complicated to tell the difference between these two tenses, so let's compare two given examples: (1) is in passé composé, (2) is in imparfait.

For example:

1. Je suis allée prendre un café chez mes amis.
   "I had a coffee at my friend's house."
2. A 17h, je prenais un café chez mes amis.
   "At 5 pm, I was having a coffee at my friend's house"

The difference is that, for the imperfect tense, the action was still happening in the past. There is an idea of duration in the past.

In the first sentence, the action is done, everyone understands you went there today, but you're already back home. If you want to be precise, or if someone is asking about what you were doing at a certain time, you will use the imperfect tense.

C'était chouette !

This expression is a very common one, usually used by young people, especially children. Here, chouette means "cool, great." There is a homophone that means "owl." For adults and adolescents, this expression isn't used and usually replaced by:

1. C'était cool !
   "It was cool!"
2. C'était énorme !
   "It was great!" or "Awesome!"
3. Ça déchire !
   "It rocks!" (lit. "It's tearing up!")

Be careful with the last two, because they're only used amongst young people and friends.

Plateau-repas

Plateau-repas is made up of two common words: plateau ("tray") and repas ("meal"). French use it for both TV dinners and anywhere else we would bring food (train, etc). Note that we don't usually use it for picnics, but it might happen. Recently, we tend to also use bento (from Japanese) or "lunchbox."

For example:

1. Je mange souvent un plateau-repas en regardant des séries.
   "I often eat TV dinners while watching TV shows."
2. Je mange un bento tous les midi.
   "I eat a bento for lunch every day."

The Lascaux Caves

The Lascaux caves are located in the hills of the Vézère Valley, in Dordogne, near Bordeaux. They are 18,600 years old and really famous for their prehistoric mural paintings. They were discovered by young hikers and their dog in 1940 and were studied afterwards by Henri Breuil, a historian.

These caves are quite famous in France because of their numerous wonderful paintings. One of the most appreciated friezes is the "Black Horses Frieze." For a long time, no one could say why these caves were painted, but now, specialists think that the animals are a metaphor of the seasons. For example, horses would stand for spring. These caves have been World Heritage listed since 1979.