What Is the Passé Récent?

The passé récent ("recent past") is how French expresses that something happened just a moment ago — the equivalent of English "I just did X." It isn't a real past tense grammatically; it's a construction built from the present tense of venir (to come) followed by de and an infinitive.

The formula: sujet + venir (conjugated) + de/d' + infinitif.

Je viens de manger. (I just ate.)
Elle vient d'arriver. (She just arrived.)
Nous venons de finir nos devoirs. (We just finished our homework.)

Notice de becomes d' before a vowel sound, exactly as it does everywhere else in French: venir d'arriver, venir d'écouter.

Conjugating Venir in the Present

Since venir is irregular, get the present tense solid before layering the passé récent on top:

je viens · tu viens · il/elle/on vient
nous venons · vous venez · ils/elles viennent

Passé Récent vs. Passé Composé

Both talk about the past, but they answer different questions. Passé composé is the general-purpose past tense for any completed action, regardless of when it happened. Passé récent is specifically for something that happened moments ago, with the emphasis still felt in the present.

J'ai mangé à midi. (I ate at noon.) — a fact, no sense of "just now"
Je viens de manger. (I just ate.) — happened seconds or minutes ago, still relevant

You could technically say J'ai mangé il y a deux minutes to convey the same idea as je viens de manger, but native speakers overwhelmingly reach for venir de because it's shorter and communicates "just now" instantly, without needing a time expression.

The Past Version: Venait de (Imperfect + Infinitif)

The passé récent also has a past-tense version, built by putting venir in the imparfait instead of the present. This means "had just done something" — describing an action that had just finished right before another past event.

Je venais de sortir quand il a commencé à pleuvoir. (I had just gone out when it started raining.)
Ils venaient de partir quand tu es arrivé. (They had just left when you arrived.)

This pattern is common in narrative writing and storytelling — useful for the TCF Canada written expression task and for DELF B1/B2 narrative essays, where examiners look for varied, precise time relationships between past events rather than a string of simple passé composé sentences.

Don't Confuse It with Futur Proche

Learners sometimes mix up venir de with aller + infinitive (futur proche), since both are two-word constructions built on a conjugated verb plus an infinitive. They point in opposite directions in time:

Je vais manger. (I am going to eat.) — near future
Je viens de manger. (I just ate.) — near past

A useful memory trick: aller means "to go," so it moves you forward toward the action. Venir means "to come," so it moves you away from an action you just came from.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Adding an extra tense marker: Don't say je viens de manger hier — venir de already implies "just now," so pairing it with hier (yesterday) is contradictory.
Forgetting the "de": Je viens manger means "I'm coming to eat," a totally different meaning without the de.
Conjugating the second verb: The verb after de must stay in the infinitive: venir de partir, never venir de parti or venir de pars.

Practice Sentences

Try translating these using venir de: "We just watched a movie." "She just called me." "I had just finished when you texted." (Answers: Nous venons de regarder un film. / Elle vient de m'appeler. / Je venais de finir quand tu m'as envoyé un message.)

Ready to make constructions like this automatic? Explore our French learning parcours for guided grammar practice built around real exam scenarios.

Le Passé Récent: How to Say Something 'Just Happened' with Venir de + Infinitif