J’ai failli manquer le train ce matin.

I almost missed the train this morning.

Breakdown of J’ai failli manquer le train ce matin.

• je: I
• le matin: the morning
• ce: this
• le train: the train

Questions & Answers about J’ai failli manquer le train ce matin.

Why is it j’ai failli + infinitive?

Because faillir is commonly used as a semi-auxiliary meaning to almost do something.

So the pattern is:

subject + avoir + failli + infinitive

In this sentence:

• j’ai = I have
• failli = almost
• manquer = to miss

So j’ai failli manquer literally works like I almost missed.

This is one of the most common ways in French to express a near-event.

Examples:

• J’ai failli tomber. = I almost fell.
• Il a failli oublier. = He almost forgot.
• Nous avons failli arriver en retard. = We almost arrived late.

Why is faillir in the passé composé here?

Because the speaker is talking about a specific event that happened this morning: they came close to missing the train at one particular moment.

French usually uses the passé composé for:

• completed events
• specific events in the past
• one-time actions

So j’ai failli manquer le train ce matin fits that perfectly.

Using the imperfect here would sound unusual in normal conversation. The idea is not I was almost missing the train, but rather I almost missed the train at a specific moment.

What exactly does faillir mean here? Does it literally mean ?