Car breakdown

"Panne de voiture"
French B2 writing exercise

Julien's car broke down at the most inconvenient time.

Pay attention to the hints!

Some vocabulary you may want to look up before or during this exercise: "a schedule (personal)", "to take a detour", "summery", "a landscape", "to break down (car)", "to stall (car)", "to start again (engine)", "bummed", "to pour down (rain)", "just in time to [do]".

Written by Qualified French Expert Aurélie Drouard HKH, Licence d'anglais LLCE
Last updated: 2023-01-20

I’ll give you some sentences to translate into French

  • I’ll show you where you make mistakes
  • I’ll keep track of what you need to practise
  • Change my choices if you want
Start the exercise
How the test works
You’ll practise: Le Passé Composé (Indicatif), Verbes avec être comme auxiliaire, Le Plus-que-Parfait (Indicatif)

Here's a preview of the text for the writing challenge, when you're ready click the start button above:

The day had started well for Julien: in the morning, he had gone grocery shopping in town because he'd invited us over for dinner. As he was early, he'd decided to take a detour to enjoy the summery landscapes. And it was there, in the middle of nowhere, that his car broke down! It stalled and didn't start again! Julien was gutted [US: disappointed and upset], but there was nothing else to do but call the garage and wait. And suddenly, it started pouring down! Julien had to remain in the car while waiting for the tow truck. Luckily, it arrived in less than twenty minutes, and Julien managed to get home just in time to prepare a delicious dinner!

Let me take a look at that...