Breakdown of Tu as téléphoné à un copain hier ?
tu
you (informal singular)
avoir
to have
à
at / to / in (general locations) / about (what one thinks about / reacts to)
hier
yesterday
téléphoner
to call / to phone
le copain
the friend / the mate (masculine)
Questions & Answers about Tu as téléphoné à un copain hier ?
How do we know this sentence is in the past tense?
It uses the passé composé, which is made of two parts. Here, we have the helping verb as (from avoir, meaning "have") and the past participle téléphoné (called). Literally, the French says "You have called."
How do I form the past participle for a verb like téléphoner?
For regular verbs ending in -er, you drop the -er from the infinitive and add an -é. So, téléphoner simply becomes téléphoné.
Why does it say téléphoné à un copain? In English we just say "called a friend."
In French, the verb téléphoner is always followed by the preposition à when you mention the person you are calling. It helps to think of it as "to telephone to a friend."
Why is there no "est-ce que" or flipped word order to make this a question?
In everyday spoken French, you can turn a regular statement into a question just by raising your voice at the end. In writing, the question mark does this job, so you don't always need formal question structures like est-ce que.
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