French language Q&A Forum

Is this tense more commonly used in French than in English? I hardly ever speak like this in English and I find it to be a strange tense to learn since it doesn't seem likely that we learners will be reminiscing in French. That seems to be it's only use.

Not a question, but sounds like a great day I'd like to do merci beaucoup :)

Merci pour les nouveaux exercices d’écoute !

It seems the speaker is saying "l'impact de gigantesque."  I understand that a "de" here would be incorrect, but that is what I hear.  I presume this is because she is actually emphasizing the end of the word as in "l'impACT gigantesque."  Nevertheless, the emphasis on the end of the word seems over done.  

Later, it sounds as if she is saying "cette décision était facile."  I understand, too, that this would be incorrect grammatically, but nevertheless it is almost impossible for me to here clearly "ait été."  

Perhaps the lesson here is that one should not go by what one thinks one hears, but figure out what would be grammatically correct.  I guess that is probably what we do when listening to English.  We "sort of" listen but actually are just following the flow of the idea being transmitted and fill in the precise details only as needed.