Last week in our French conversations we had the phrase, ‘ça a été?’ This common colloquial expression is used in conjunction with something already mentioned or mentioned in the phrase itself. For example, ‘le weekend, ça a été?’ and is a way of asking how your weekend was, but the speaker is often expecting a positive response. The closest to this in English would be ‘And was your weekend good?’ What is great is that you can use the expression with lots of subjects, eg ‘Ça a été le repas/le theatre/le film/les vacances?’ So it's a good piece of small talk and something you might hear in a friendly informal French bar.
However, let’s not forget that ‘été’, as well as being the past participle of être, also is a noun meaning ‘summer’. So, in September, if you are catching up with a French-speaking friend you haven’t seen since April, you could find yourself saying, ‘Alors, l’été, ça a été?’. And if someone does ask you, a stock response whilst you're thinking of what else to say would be, 'Super, merci!' and then you could add more detail. Alors, cet article, ça a été? :)
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