Keeping Your Money Safe — Garder son argent en securité by Dawn-Michelle Baude, Ph.D.
It's not a good idea to keep money in your hand. You know why, don't you? Because you might lose it! You need to put (mettre) your money somewhere.
Mettre is an important verb. When we put food away, we use mettre. And when a French mom tells French kids to clean up their room and put things away, you can be certain she'll use mettre!
To Put — Mettre
Let's look at the conjugation map for mettre. It similar to the prendre map we used before:
English |
French |
to put |
mettre |
I put |
je mets |
you put |
tu mets |
he/she/it puts |
il/elle/il met |
we put |
nous mettons |
you put |
vous mettez |
they put |
ils/elles mettent |
TRY THIS Essaie ceci
Collecting Coins — Ramasser la monnaie
Euro coins have the same value all over the world, but each country with Euro currency makes its own coins. France and its European neighbors — Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain — each put different pictures on the coins and bills. A fun thing to do is to try and collect a coin from each country.
Now we need the sentence formula, Je + conjugated mettre + mon argent + place = Je + mets + mon argent + dans ma poche = Je mets mon argent dans ma poche (“I put my money in my pocket”). Where else can you put it?
English |
French |
…in my pocket |
…dans ma poche |
…in my purse |
…dans mon sac |
…in my wallet |
…dans mon portefeuille |
…in my drawer |
…dans mon tiroir |
…in my backpack |
…dans mon sac-à-dos |
…in the bank |
…à la banque |
…in the safe |
…dans le coffre-fort |
The Recent Past — Le passé récent
Sometimes, saying “Right now, I am putting my money in my purse” isn't what you need. Neither is “Right now, I put my money in my purse.” Sometimes you need, “A little while ago, I put my money in my purse.” You want a way to say you did something recently in the past.
In French, it's easy to say that you did something a little while ago. You use a kind of verb form called le passé récent (“The Recent Past”). But to make le passé recént, you need another verb, venir (“to come”). Here's its conjugation map:
English |
French |
to come |
venir |
I come |
je viens |
you come |
tu viens |
he/she/it comes |
il/elle/il vient |
we come |
nous venons |
you come |
vous venez |
they come |
ils/elles viennent |
Show Me the Money
Tanya has ten Euros but she can't decide where to put them.
Can you help her by matching the name with the correct picture?
ma poche | mon sac | mon portefeuille | mon tiroir | mon sac-à-dos | la banque | le coffre-fort
To say an action took place in the recent past, you conjugate venir. That means you match the forms of venir (viens, viens, vient, venons, venez, viennent) with the subject.
Then you make a formula like this: subject + conjugated venir + de + mettre + Euros + place. So “I just put two Euros in my backpack” is Je+ viens + de + mettre + deux Euros + dans mon sac-à-dos = Je viens de mettre deux Euros dans mon sac-à-dos. And “He just put a two-Euro coin in his wallet” is Il + vient + de + mettre +une pièce de deux Euros + dans son portefeuille = Il vient de mettre une pièce de deux Euros dans son portefeuille .
Since time is money, let's get going and try out le passé récent. Look at the following present tense sentences and change them to le passé récent:
Elles mettent un billet dans un tiroir.
Il met son argent dans son sac-à-dos.
Nous mettons nos Euros dans un sac.
Je mets la monnaie dans le portefeuille.
Vous mettez vos Euros dans un coffre-fort.
Tu mets cinquante Euros et trente centimes à la banque.
