Je suis passé à la banque

Je suis passé à la banque pour retirer de l'argent. //

I went to the bank to withdraw some money

Partially the pic is explained by my frustration with pretty much everybody (banks including) wanting you to install their app on your phone.

As if your phone didn't know enough about you already. Feels like not only putting all eggs in one basket, but also collapsing said basket to convenient, easy-lo-lose size.

Consider this pic is a possible, albeit partial, solution to the lost phone problem.

Nous devrions reprendre le problème

J'ai réfléchi à la situation, et d'après moi nous devrions reprendre le problème depuis le début // I have thought about the situation, and in my opinion we should go back to the beginning of the problem

Poor cat. But not to worry, somebody will rescue him soon. Probably saying many more new french words while they are at it.

Phrase from French Word of the Day again.

il a débuté sa carrière

En 2017, il a débuté sa carrière dans ce blog // In 2017, he began his career in this blog

We are nearly at the end of the academic year - tomorrow is the last lesson.

We continue working with  Passé composé (a débuté in the sentence above) but you can tell that the year is almost gone by the number of people who attend. Basically, the class is almost gone also.

I really need to work on the lights. I will do it on my winter break.

Le chat est allé à un musée

Le chat est allé à un musée. Il s'est ennuyé énormément. // The cat went to museum. He was very bored.

We carry on with Passé Composé (and a few other things). Reflexive verbs take "être" as an auxiliary, and aller (to go) is one of the few non-reflexive verbs that also take être. So here it is used in both phrases.

We were given a table that explains when you use être and when avoir. I really like that fact that in the avoir section there is a box which simply stated "TOUS LES AUTRES VERBES", all the other verbs.

Rather reminds me of the alien vocabulary used in "Кин-дза-дза" movie which consists of a several special words and a catch-all word "КУ" (KOO) used for everything else.

Hier le chat s’est reposé. Aujourd’hui le chat se repose

Hier, le chat a reposé. Aujourd’hui, le chat repose.* //
Yesterday, the cat rested. Today, the cat is resting.

Today we briefly touched on Passé Composé, a verbal tense similar to present perfect in English, although is doesn’t always translate into it. Two auxiliary verbs can be used — avoir and être (to have and to be). To have, avoir, is used in most cases. (Counterintuitively, we started with The Other One, être, as in “hier, ils sont allé”, “yesterday they went”).

I am not sure if Passé Composé sounds natural in this little description of the cat’s daily routine. But I wanted to use it anyway.

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* UPD: a correction just arrived from Twitter (AnessNuts) — it must be “hier le chat s’est reposé , aujourd’hui le chat se repose” — i.e. it is a reflexive verb and these take être as an auxiliary. By a strange coincidence this was exactly what we talked about in class today.

Pictures related to cats and sleep @ Shutterstock.