The ULTIMATE French Pronunciation Podcast / How We ACTUALLY Say “ON + SE” in the Passé Composé

Chase Emery Davis (0:07)

Hello and welcome to season 6, episode 5 of Learning French by Accident. I have something very exciting for you today. We are continuing our adventure through the word On and its many uses in the Passé Composé. Today, we're going to look at it being used with the reflexive pronoun Se. And what does that mean? Well, that means reflexive verbs. And I always get so excited when we can do a reflexive verb episode, because this is one of those things that is so French, the whole reflexive concept, it's so French that it's hard to translate to English. And that is the stuff I love training your ears to, because it will train your intuition. It will help you understand subtilities about the language that are hard to understand sometimes, because when we're dealing with direct translations, we're still using our original brain, our native language brain, but when we're dealing with something that is so very different, we have to get into the brain of our target language. In this case, of course, it is French. Now a quick reminder, reflexive verbs have a few functions in French. Sometimes you will see a reflexive version of a verb you already know that suddenly takes on a brand new meaning, or it just means that you're doing the action to yourself, because it could go either way. Either the action is being done internally, or it is completely shifting the meaning of the verb. Let me give you a quick example. If I said voir, and I always use this example, voir means to see, but se voir is to see oneself.

SPEAKER_2 (1:41)

However, mettre is to put, but se mettre is to get started. Yes, se mettre au travail, to get started with work.

Chase Emery Davis (1:51)

And that's exactly what I mean, to put yourself to work, to get started with work, is such a different concept from what you might expect, that you really have to put your mind into a French setting. And that is exactly what we're going to be doing with each and every one of the sentences today. So first of all, let me get you prepared for what you're going to hear.

As we're dealing with the Passé Composé, and we're dealing with reflexives, we're also looking at using the auxiliary verb être, which is one of the ones we don't get to use as much because it just is not used with as many verbs. But every time you use a reflexive verb in the Passé Composé, you are going to use être. I know it's a very straightforward, simple rule. So each and every one of the examples today will be using it as well. What is être in the third person singular? Well, let's have a look.

SPEAKER_2 (2:42)

Je suis, I am, tu es, you are, il est, elle est, and of course on est.

Chase Emery Davis (2:49)

So we are dealing with on est in the reflexive. We add se.

SPEAKER_2 (2:53)

So on se est, no, on se est.

Chase Emery Davis (2:56)

Because of course we will not have those two vowels side by side.

SPEAKER_2 (3:00)

We will not say on se est, we will say on se est.

Chase Emery Davis (3:03)

By the way, on se est would literally mean we hate ourselves and it would come from the verb, aire, it would make sense in that situation. But on se est is the past that we're going to declare by using a past participle afterwards by saying on se est dit.

We said something to ourselves, on s'est parlé, we spoke to ourselves or we spoke to each other, which is what you're going to see today. Yes, on can mean we, but on can also mean as we have been learning through the last few episodes, somebody, an undisclosed individual. So if I said, on s'est parlé, it could mean that we talk to each other, or we talk to ourselves or among ourselves. So that is what we're looking at today, making the distinction between the two, making the distinction also between verbs that are just, you know, reflexive verbs where you're doing the action to yourself versus a completely different meaning of a verb than you would expect. Oh gosh, I really love this. So let's dive into our first example before I get too excited. Now remember, you're going to be listening out for on s'est plus a verb. Okay, so that's what you're going to hear here. Open your ears.

SPEAKER_2 (4:15)

Est-ce que vous êtes prêts? On y va. Ouais, on s'est vu hier. On s'est vu hier.

Ouais, ben on s'est vu hier.

Chase Emery Davis (4:25)