# FR: Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure



## Wunibald

Far be it from me to question Marcel Proust's command of French grammar, but shouldn't the opening of _A la recherche du temps perdu_ be in the imparfait (_Longtemps, je me couchais de bonne heure_...)?

*Moderator note: *multiple threads merged to create this one


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## Pipsy

why, what tense is it in instead?


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## Wunibald

_Je me suis couché..._ c'est le passé composé me semble-t-il.


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## Donaldos

Et c'est normal, il fait référence à une action qui est délimitée dans le temps et qui appartient à une période apparemment révolue ("longtemps").

Compare:

Quand j'étais petit, je me couchais tôt.
Durant toute mon enfance, je me suis couché tôt.


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## Wunibald

Donaldos said:


> Et c'est normal, il fait référence à une action qui est délimitée dans le temps et qui appartient à une période apparemment révolue ("longtemps").
> 
> Compare:
> 
> Quand j'étais petit, je me couchais tôt.
> Durant toute mon enfance, je me suis couché tôt.


 

Je réfléchis à ces deux exemples depuis un bon moment mais je ne vois toujours pas la différence.
Suis-je le seul à trouver la phrase de Proust problématique?


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## jann

Hello Wunibald, 

Remember that the _passé composé_ is used for things of definite duration.  

"When I was little" is a generic statement of condition.  It has no beginning or end.  It is of indefinite duration, and so you use the _imparfait.  _But "for my entire childhood" defines period that started at your birth and ended with your passage to adulthood.  This is a definite duration (less definite than "for 3 days," but definite none the less) and so you use the _passé composé_.

I am not a native speaker, but for me, Proust's choice of the _passé composé_ indicates that he intends us to understand this _longtemps _as a period of definite duration that started and ended in the past.  Is that at all helpful? 

UPDATE: The French language wikipedia article on the passé composé uses Proust's sentence to illustrate how the tense can be used for "iterative" events:





> Il peut aussi présenter un aspect itératif : _Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure. _(Marcel Proust). A comprendre comme : _pendant une longue période (passée) de ma vie, je me suis régulièrement couché de bonne heure. _


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## Wunibald

Thanks for that, Jann. Il faut que je révise ma compréhension du passé composé.
Après 30 ans à Paris il était temps! (il a été temps? ... no let's not go there...)


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## itka

Wunibald said:


> Après 30 ans à Paris il était temps! (il a été temps? ... no let's not go there...)



Il serait temps !


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## Curt Jugg

My […] question concerns the following sentence, which, I understand, comes from Proust's "A la Recherche du Temps perdu":

"Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure."

What puzzles me here is the use of the perfect when a habitual situation is described: I thought the imperfect tense was used for habitual actions. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## Maître Capello

As a matter of fact, _longtemps_ here implies that he used to go to bed early, but that this is no longer the case today. The passé composé is therefore more suitable to indicate that it is over.


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## Curt Jugg

Thank you very much for your replies. Does this mean that when describing a habitual action in the past which is now over one should use the passé composé rather than the imperfect?


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## LV4-26

My take on this.
The word _longtemps_ is what justifies the use of the _passé composé._

With _à cette époque_, for instance, the imperfect would be required
_A cette époque, je me couchais de bonne heure._

Both describe an habitual action.
The difference is that the former is not precisely located in time.
Similarly: _Je me suis toujours couché tôt._
_Pendant un certain temps, je me suis couché de bonne heure._

In the latter (with the _imparfait_), the period of time referred to is clearly defined, in the sentence itself or in the context.

I'm not providing a grammatical rule, mind you, although one surely exists. Just trying to draw conclusions from apparent usage.

By the way, this is the most famous opening sentence in French literature. And it's generally considered as very cleverly put, simple though (or _as_?) it is.


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## Byron de Grey

Since we're English/French bilinguals here, we might just bypass logical analysis and simply say that direct translation provides the solution in this case:

"Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure."
"For a long time, I went to bed early."
(Anglophones would likely _not_ say: "For a long time, I _used to go_ to bed early.")

"À cet époque, je me couchais de bonne heure."
"At that time (In those days), I used to go to bed early."
(As an Anglophone, I feel comfortable with "used to" here, which is a common equivalent of "imparfait".)

Both French and English treat this time issue in the same way. In my humble opinion, neither language really does it logically - I feel the "imparfait" or "used to" should be used in both cases because neither "longtemps"/"for a long time" nor "à cet époque"/"in those days" is a clearly delimited period of time, and we are referring to habitual behavior in both cases. 

Nevertheless, to make it easy, both languages do essentially the same thing with the time expression and verb choice (all logic aside).

Byron


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## Curt Jugg

Many thanks to both of you for your helpful explanations, which have given me something to think about!


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## Gérard Napalinex

Byron de Grey said:


> [...]
> 
> "À cet époque, je me couchais de bonne heure."
> 
> Both French and English treat this time issue in the same way. In my humble opinion, neither language really does it logically -  [...]
> 
> Byron



Let me share a tip here - which IMHO too brings some logic in the use of imparfait.
I see this word "imparfait" as having the radix _in_ added in front of _parfait _(big deal so far ! ).
Now if you think of parfait in its primary meaning, you'll think of "complete".

This helps me remembering that imparfait needs to be used for an on-going action - with regards to the time of narration.
"À cette époque, je me couchais de bonne heure" is fine, because the author is telling us about a period of his/her life, during which s/he used to go to bed early.


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## Byron de Grey

Gérard Napalinex said:


> "À cette époque, je me couchais de bonne heure" is fine, because the author is telling us about a period of his/her life, during which s/he used to go to bed early.



That's certainly true and well expressed. However, that's not the usage which I feel is illogical; rather, it is the original _passé composé_ which is difficult to explain: *"Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure."* That sentence also tells us about a period of one's life during which s/he used to go to bed early - habitually, repeatedly, etc. - all the usual concepts associated with the _imparfait_. Nevertheless, a _passé composé_ is used.

The same _passé composé_ would also be used to refer to a single specific time in the past: "Hier soir, je me suis couché de bonne heure." 

The point that I was trying to make is that English has the same built-in illogic: an English simple past [~ _passé composé_] can be used to express _habitual past actions_ or _one specific past action_: "For a long time [_longtemps_], I went to bed early" AND "Last night [_hier soir_], I went to bed early."


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## Gérard Napalinex

@Byron,

Thank you for clarifying the point.
My answer would then be that "se coucher" being a short action in itself, it is quickly over, hence the "passé composé". I am not that happy with my explanation - which hardly is one indeed ! But still hope you'll somehow get my point.

Now french and english having some weirdnesses in common is one of the reasons why we enjoy sharing views on this forum, isn't it ?


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## LV4-26

Gérard Napalinex said:


> @Byron,
> 
> Thank you for clarifying the point.
> ]My answer would then be that "se coucher" being a *short* action in itself, it is quickly over, hence the "passé composé". I am not that happy with my explanation - which hardly is one indeed ! But still hope you'll somehow get my point.
> 
> Now french and english having some weirdnesses in common is one of the reasons why we enjoy sharing views on this forum, isn't it ?


(emphasis added)
I'm not happy either.  Consider, for instance
_Longtemps, j'ai composé des opéras._

And I realize my own theory (vaguely vs specifically defined period of time) doesn't really work either.

I think the answer lies in the "aspectual" value of those tenses. And that is indeed where French concurs with English, as Byron suggested.

_Passé composé _: the (habitual) action is considered from the point of view of the present.
_Imparfait_ : focuses on the period of time when the action (habitually) took place.


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## Francobritannocolombien

OK, my take: the fact that it is habitual is irrelevant. This is a typical use of the passé composé to indicate a condition or an event, habitual or not, long or short, which refers to something in the past that somehow contributes to shaping the present, be it only by being an element in the subject's history. I could say "j'ai passé la première moitié de ma vie au Danemark" or "j'ai visité le Zimbabwe" or "je n'ai jamais bu de saké": these are building blocks of the person I am today (BTW, none of the above is true, those are just examples to illustrate the point).

One particular use of "used to" is clearly not the equivalent of the imperfect in French, and it is precisely the use I am trying to describe. Imagine someone asking you "how come you speak such perfect Portuguese?" In English you might answer "I _used to live_ in Brazil" but in French you would say "j'_ai habité_ au Brésil). You may even specify j'ai _longtemps _habité au Brésil. In English you would have to start a second sentence to express that, and use a different tense: "I used to live in Brazil. Actually, I spent more than 20 years there."
But then if you want to express this with a simple past in a sentence you could say "I _once _lived in Brazil." The use of "once" here shows that neither the duration nor the iteration of the event is relevant: it is stored in the memory as one element of one's history.


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## LV4-26

That's very interesting, Fbc. 
Your first paragraph expands on what was yet merely an intuition in my previous post ("from the point of view of the present").

You're making a good point in the second paragraph: yes, sometimes _used to_ is best translated by the _passé composé_. And your conclusion about the use of _once_ is quite convincing (although it doesn't seem to apply in the sample sentence).

I agree that the habitual aspect is not relevant. Which is why I wrote (habitual) between brackets in my last post.


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## Maître Capello

Francobritannocolombien said:


> This is a typical use of the passé composé to indicate a condition or an event which refers to something in the past that somehow contributes to shaping the present…


Let me disagree with this interpretation… As a matter of fact, I have the opposite feeling!  As I wrote above, I think the passé composé here indicates that the habit is over, hence that there is no more link with the present. By the way, we could also use the passé simple in a more literary context:

_Il se *coucha* longtemps de bonne heure, (mais un beau jour, il se mit à faire la fête tous les soirs et à ne jamais rentrer avant minuit)._


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## LV4-26

Maître Capello said:


> Let me disagree with this interpretation… As a matter of fact, I have the opposite feeling!  As I wrote above, I think the passé composé here indicates that the habit is over, *hence that there is no more link with the present*. By the way, we could also use the passé simple in a more literary context:
> 
> _Il se *coucha* longtemps de bonne heure, (mais un beau jour, il se mit à faire la fête tous les soirs et à ne jamais rentrer avant minuit)._


Well, you could say the fact that it's over is some sort of link, if only by contrast.

The more I think of it, the more I'm perplexed by the whole issue.
Why do we (preferably) say
_Pendant cette période, je me suis couché de bonne heure._
...but...
_A cette époque-là, je me couchais de bonne heure._
?
What's the subtle difference between those two adverbs?


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## Francobritannocolombien

Maître Capello said:


> Let me disagree with this interpretation… As a matter of fact, I have the opposite feeling!  As I wrote above, I think the passé composé here indicates that the habit is over, hence that there is no more link with the present. By the way, we could also use the passé simple in a more literary context:
> 
> _Il se *coucha* longtemps de bonne heure, (mais un beau jour, il se mit à faire la fête tous les soirs et à ne jamais rentrer avant minuit)._



Let's agree to disagree then. Benveniste décrit le passé simple comme l'_aoriste du récit_ et le passé composé comme l'_aoriste du discours_. Le passé simple n'est pas a priori une simple version littéraire du passé composé, mais il l'est devenu parce qu'il en différait pour une raison plus fondamentale: le passé simple est le temps historique par excellence, celui qui permet à l'auteur de l'énoncé de ne pas s'y investir du tout, le temps qui est totalement indépendant du présent de l'énonciation (c'est à dire de la réalité du sujet parlant), c'est précisément pourquoi on ne le trouve qu'en français écrit et presque toujours à la troisième personne. Je remarque d'ailleurs que MC est passé de la première à la troisième personne pour reprendre la phrase de Proust. Même dans un français littéraire et écrit, Proust n'aurait pas pu écrire "longtemps je me couchai de bonne heure" parce que précisément ce serait ramener ce constat à un simple élément narratif d'un récit dont il se détache complètement au moment où il écrit. Je continue de penser que c'est précisément parce qu'il s'investit personnellement dans ce récit et qu'il considère - consciemment ou non - l'impact que les faits relatés ont sur sa réalité présente qu'il se sert du passé composé, temps du discours.



LV4-26 said:


> Well, you could say the fact that it's over is some sort of link, if only by contrast.
> 
> The more I think of it, the more I'm perplexed by the whole issue.
> Why do we (preferably) say
> _Pendant cette période, je me suis couché de bonne heure._
> ...but...
> _A cette époque-là, je me couchais de bonne heure._
> ?
> What's the subtle difference between those two adverbs?



Traditionnal grammar might say something like "à cette époque-là" is open-ended and therefore requires the imperfect whereas "pendant cette période" sets limits and therefore requires the passé composé. Unfortunately, one might find countless counter-examples, so the explanation has to be elsewhere: we all know that a sentence such as "je (boire de la bière) quand j'(avoir) 18 ans" can have 4 different meanings based on the verb tenses used, choosing only from imparfait and passé composé. Similarly, there's nothing wrong with "à cette époque-là, je me suis couché de bonne heure" if what you mean is "although I usually went to bed late in those days, and you might think that  I did so every single night, I can assure you that I did go to bed early on occasion, even then."

I think the explanation is to be found in the aspect of the verb: is it descriptive ( = imparfait) or is it narrative (= passé composé)? in other words, are we giving background info about the main story (= imparfait) or adding a narrative element to the story itself (= passé composé) ?


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