Key learning points

1. Senegal is a French-speaking country in West Africa. An independent nation since 1960, Senegal was a French colony.
2. To talk about an action that happened in the past, we can use 'le passé composé' (the perfect tense), e.g. 'j'ai mangé'.
3. When using the perfect tense, the adverb generally goes after the verb 'avoir' and before the past participle.
4. To form an inversion question in the perfect tense, swap the subject and the verb ('avoir'), e.g. 'As-tu commencé ?'.
5. In negative sentences, 'ne … pas' and 'ne … jamais' go around the verb.

Keywords

• Perfect tense - a verb tense that describes completed actions in the past, e.g. 'I said', 'she played'

• Adverb - word that describes a verb or an adjective

• Inversion - when the subject pronoun and the verb switch place to form a question

• Negative - a statement which denies or expresses negative meaning, e.g. 'il ne pleut pas'; in French this includes two elements, e.g. 'ne … pas', around the main verb

Common misconception