When the Perfect Tense Is Used in French
The perfect tense is the most common way to talk about the past in French. You can use it to talk about past events, things that occurred multiple times in the past, or a series of actions that happened way back when.
Here are some French examples and their English equivalents to help get a better idea:
J’ai oublié comment faire passé composé. Heureusement, j’ai trouvé un magicien pour m’aider. J’ai réappris passé composé et j’ai remonté le temps!
(I forgot how to form the perfect tense. Fortunately, I found a magician to help me. I relearned the past tense and traveled back in time!)
So in a nutshell, passé composé is the equivalent of the simple past tense in English.