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[help] translation of "sky fire" in french & use of passé simple
Hi,
I have to write a creative piece as an assignment and I would like to know if the following translation of "sky fire" would be correct:
L'incendie de ciel
-I want to use it as a noun; like a name of an event. Is that correct?
My second question: the passé simple- does it fulfill the same function as the passé composé? So If I were to write a story, would it be a combination of the present tense, the preteret and the passé composé, and also the plus-que parfait? I'm just unsure as to what the preteret is for- we were told briefly that it's like the passé composé.
Thank you
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on
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Re your first question: the word incendie usually refers to an unintended fire, e.g. in a building, that causes damage to property. I'm not sure that's what you mean here. I would suggest simply "feu du ciel", though I confess I don't know exactly what you mean by the phrase.
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Re your second question: they aren't completely interchangeable. There are two major differences:
- punctuality: the passé simple indicates events that occur as "isolated units in sequence"; the passé composé simply indicates events that have happened "in the past", but could be overlapping and their consequences could extend into the future
- literary style: the passé composé is a tense used in everyday speech and writing; the passé simple is practically obsolete, only being used in a very literary style of writing, or very occasionally (mainly the form fut) in "semi-formal" speech/writing to mark a strong contrast between a 'historical' situation and a more recent past. (In this latter case you therefore get a mixture, with the main narrative being in the passé composé, and then occasional more 'historical' facts denoted with the form fut-- this is common practice in TV and written news reporting.)
As an example of the first point, consider the following utterance.
Jean est arrivé en retard. Le professeur l'a grondé.
"Jean arrived late. The teacher told him off."
Le professeur a grondé Jean: il est arrivé en retard.
"The teacher told Jean off: he arrived late"
With the passé composé, you can effectively put the two 'events' in either order, because you're effectively recounting them as "overlapping events that together contribute to the general situation I'm describing". However, in the passé simple, the events are recounted in sequence. So if I say:
Jean arriva en retard. Le professeur le gronda.
Jean arrived late. (Then) the teacher told him off.
Le professeur gronda Jean. Il arriva en retard.
The teacher told Jean off. (Then) he arrived late.
the second version is a little odd, because (at least for some speakers) it implies that Jean arrived late after the teacher told him off.Apart from that difference, there is the-- possibly more considerable-- issue that the passé simple is no longer used in spontaneous speech. (Or, from one point of view, it is obsolete.) So if you use it in writing/formal speech, it gives a certain effect of being highly "literary" or "conservative" or "extremely formal" (etc) sounding.
Many Francophone authors nowadays use other narrative tenses (present or passé composé) and I would suggest you do similar unless you have a strong reason to use the passé simple.
[P.S. I have borrowed the "gronder" example above from a conference paper I heard a few years ago-- I don't just remember who was presenting the paper and so apologise for lack of attribution!]
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Key StudentPermalink Reply by Peter En on -
by the way, can i use passe compose AND passe simple at the same time? or is it only one or the other? I have to use the preteret because it's a requirement of the task... but I'm also aware that most of the events happening in the storyline aren't 'historical' and most of them are completed (as usual with 3rd person stories)... so I was intending to write in the preteret for only reflections about historical events (and events that follow in sequence) and in imparfait and passe-compose for just general story telling. would using both like that be right?
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Yes, the two can be mixed-- and actually in modern writing, if the passé simple is used at all, it is often mixed in some way with the passé composé. But you just need to be clear about when exactly they are mixed.
If you use the passé simple (preterite) as the overall narrative tense, then you wouldn't generally mix this with the passé composé, except if you're trying to create a deliberate effect of a "historic account" mixed in with reflections from the narrator on more recent events in the recent past.
Another style, generally used in modern newspapers and by some contemporary French authors, is to use the passé composé as the general narrative tense, but with occasional use of the passé simple to indicate an event that was part of the "historic background" to the general event being discussed. As I think I mention above, in this case, by far the most common case is with forms of the verb être: fut and furent.
So it sounds like what you are proposing is of the style I've just mentioned, and would definitely be a style adopted by many French authors. The only thing that occurs to me is that if the task was supposed to be to practise the passé simple, then in reality you may not use it that many times. I'm a bit surprised your tutor didn't give more guidance!
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Key StudentPermalink Reply by Peter En on -
Thanks Neil, that really cleared a lot of things up!
I suspect my tutor may have underestimated the actual task- and all the little problems involved in using an extinct tense!
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