Use simple grammar and vocabulary to recount a past event (holidays, travel)

Talking About Past Holidays and Travel

When you want to tell someone about what you did during your holidays or a trip, you use a special form of the verb called the passé composé (composed past). This is the most common way to talk about completed actions in the past in French.

How to Form the Passé Composé

The passé composé is made of two parts:

1. An auxiliary verb (either avoir or être) in the present tense
2. A past participle (the main verb in its past form)

For most French verbs, you use avoir as the auxiliary. To form the past participle, you usually add -é to the infinitive stem of -er verbs.

Key Vocabulary for Holidays and Travel

Here are useful French words for talking about holidays and trips:

French	English
les vacances	holidays
le voyage	trip / journey
hier	yesterday
la semaine dernière	last week
pendant les vacances	during holidays
j'ai voyagé	I travelled
j'ai visité	I visited
j'ai mangé	I ate
j'ai joué	I played
j'ai vu	I saw

Example Sentences

Here are simple sentences you can use to talk about your past holidays:

• Hier, j'ai visité Dar es Salaam.
  Yesterday, I visited Dar es Salaam.

• Pendant les vacances, j'ai joué au football avec mes amis.
  During the holidays, I played football with my friends.

• La semaine dernière, ma famille a voyagé à Zanzibar.
  Last week, my family travelled to Zanzibar.

• J'ai mangé du ngorongoro le jour de mon anniversaire.
  I ate ngorongoro on my birthday.

Steps to Tell About Your Past Holiday

1. Start with a time word: hier, la semaine dernière, pendant les vacances
2. Add the subject: je, nous, ma famille, mes amis
3. Use the auxiliary avoir: j'ai, nous avons, ils ont
4. Add the past participle: voyagé, visité, mangé, joué
5. Complete the sentence: say where you went or what you did

Useful Phrases for Your Story

• Je suis allé(e) à... — I went to...
• J'ai vu... — I saw...
• C'était... — It was...
• J'ai passé... — I spent (time)...

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Real-life application

When you return to school after holidays, your French teacher may ask you "Qu'est-ce que tu as fait pendant les vacances?" (What did you do during the holidays?). Using the passé composé, you can answer in French and tell your friends about your trip to a national park, a relative's house in another town, or your holiday activities — for example, "J'ai visité le parc national du Serengeti et j'ai dépensé 50 000 TSH pour le billet d'entrée" (I visited Serengeti National Park and I spent 50,000 TSh for the entry ticket). This helps you practise French while sharing real experiences from your life in Tanzania.