Past perfect or present tense

1.I have bought a new car.
2.I bought a new car.

J'ai acheté une nouvelle voiture.

I recently bought a new car. I bought a new SAAB.
When you say I bought a new car it may be the action of purchase took place 5 years ago or 100 years ago.

I bought a new car is like I walked to town.

For me to write I have bought a new car means it is a very fresh event. Probably I bought it today or last evening.

If you bought it recently or rather to indicate the purchase of the car is a recent event, do you write 'passé composé' in French?

I know the French 'passé composé' represents both past perfect and simple past.

The tense 'l'imperfait' is simply equals to the English tense 'simple past'.
However, the French way of using the tense 'l'imperfait' is slightly different than English.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on July 27, 2009 at 4:55pm

French often doesn't make the distinction between did and have done; the passé composé covers both. So j'ai acheté une voiture could mean either "I have bought a car" or simply "I bought a car", depending on context.

Occasionally, the pluperfect is used in French to emphasise the idea of a past event that is disconnected from the present. For example:

je te l'avais bien dit!
I told you so!

Here it's as though you're "imagining an extra event" between (a) the person warning the other person, (b) the thing happening that they were warning against, and (c) the speaker saying "I told you so!", so that the original warning isn't considered a "recent, presently-relevant action".