Re: French question -- tenses

From: "Patrick Dunn"

> Question about French verb tenses.  I know that the perfect is often used
> to express simple past:
> j'ai mange' = "I ate"
> It seems I'm seeing the use of the simple present as a sort of narrative
> tense.  Is this is a peculiariaty of the text I'm learning from, an
> oversimplification, perhaps, or is this common in written French.  I see
> things like:
> je mange la cane, et c'est si bonne.
> For what in English would be expressed:
> I *ate* the duck, and it *was* so good.
> I'm just confused.  Maybe there's a table online that lists the common
> uses of all the French tenses.  (Spanish is so much easier!)
Normally, I'd defer to a native speaker, but isn't Christophe boogying down
in the Netherlands? As only a student of French, the above sentence sounds
really weird to my ear. "Cane" instead of "canard", and "bonne" agreeing
with "ce" which is technically neuter, not feminine. As for the tense thing,
I guess it might be possible. English does it and I believe with reasonable
certainty that German does it, so perhaps French allows it as well. That is,
using the present to describe an event in the past to pull the listener in
with a "you are there" feel.

So, like, yesterday I'm eating this duck, you know, and it's, like, sooo
good, and then this man I've never met before comes up to me and, like,
pukes on my shoe, and I'm like, "Ew!".

I don't see why French might not allow this, but it's not usage I can attest
to. Is your text one of  "argotique" or "hexagonale" (though I didn't think
I was *that* out of touch)? Again, the sentence you cite goes against what
I've learned formally, and my French instincts, limited though they are,
balk.

Kou