I am not a student; I just love the language, I want to use it for travel, and I want to read French newspapers and books -- current books, with the exception of "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Three Muskateers." Are these tenses worth learning, or are they about as relevant as Shakespearean English?
rose
Favorite Answer
These two tenses are called 'literary tenses', because they are never used in spoken French, only literature and very formal writing. Occasionally i've seen the passé simple in a few journalist things, like an article from a website about French festivals that we had to read at college.
So I would say yes, if you want to read French literature you should know how to recognise the literary tenses, even though you will never need to use them in real life.
Puerto Rico
I was about to say it wasn't important until you said that it was to read those books. These books are written in the french equivalent of shakespearean English.
But other than that it is not used, only in Literature
Hope I Helped :)
Good Luck :)
pinkpantherlover123
Passe simple may be used in books like phantom of the opera and the three musketeers, but in modern works, probably not. These are only used when reading much older works, and rarely, if ever, used in conversation. I wouldn't worry about it.
Anonymous
If your reasons to learn a tense depend on whether it's useful or not then you sir don't love the language as much as you say.