{"id":29888,"date":"2018-04-03T05:24:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T03:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=29888"},"modified":"2018-04-10T02:54:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-10T00:54:57","slug":"french-grammar-past-imperfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-grammar-past-imperfect\/","title":{"rendered":"French Grammar – Past imperfect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to lesson 3 in our mini French Grammar series. After le pass\u00e9 r\u00e9cent<\/strong><\/a> and le futur proche<\/strong><\/a>, it’s time this week to look at the French tense known as l’imparfait<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

L’Imparfait<\/strong> (The imperfect)<\/em><\/p>\n

Like le pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9, le pass\u00e9 simple, <\/strong> and the pass\u00e9 r\u00e9cent<\/strong>, l’imparfait <\/strong>is a tense for talking about things that happened in the past. It differs from those other past tenses though. The imparfait<\/strong> isn’t used for actions that just happened once in past, it is used for (1) on-going or incompleted actions in the past, (2) habitual actions in the past, and (3) descriptions of things like feelings and the weather in the past.<\/p>\n

Forming l’imparfait<\/strong><\/p>\n

L’imparfait <\/strong>is a relatively easy verb tense to learn because all verbs (except for one!) are formed the same way. To form the imparfait:
\n<\/strong>begin with the present tense ‘nous’ <\/em>form of the verb (the one that ends in –ons)
\n– <\/em>remove that –ons
\n<\/em>+ and add the proper ending from the following list:
\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t
Je<\/b><\/td>-ais<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tu<\/b><\/td>-ais<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Il\/elle\/on<\/b><\/td>-ait<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nous<\/b><\/td>-ions<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vous<\/b><\/td>-iez<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ils\/elles<\/b><\/td>-aient<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/p>\n

The one exception to this rule? The verb \u00eatre <\/strong>which is conjugated as follows:
\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t
J'\u00e9tais<\/b><\/td>Nous \u00e9tions<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tu \u00e9tais<\/b><\/td>Vous \u00e9tiez<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Il\/elle\/on \u00e9tait<\/b><\/td>Ils\/elles \u00e9taient<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/p>\n

L’Imparfait <\/strong>in action<\/p>\n

Let’s look at some examples of each use mentioned above:<\/p>\n

1. On-going or incomplete actions in the past<\/strong>
\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t
Je regardais la t\u00e9l\u00e9 lorsque mon p\u00e8re est rentr\u00e9.<\/b>
Requested file could not be found (error code 404). Verify the file URL specified in the shortcode.<\/div><\/td>
I was watchng t.v. when my father got home.<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
C'est parce que tu n'\u00e9coutais pas quand je te l'ai dit!<\/b>
Requested file could not be found (error code 404). Verify the file URL specified in the shortcode.<\/div><\/td>
<It's because you weren't listening when I told you.<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/p>\n

2. Habitual actions in the past<\/strong>
\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t
Petit, mon fils allait au cin\u00e9ma tous les samedis.<\/b>
Requested file could not be found (error code 404). Verify the file URL specified in the shortcode.<\/div><\/td>
When he was small, my son went to the movies every Saturday.<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nous mangions de la pizza tous les vendredis soir \u00e0 l'universit\u00e9.<\/b>
Requested file could not be found (error code 404). Verify the file URL specified in the shortcode.<\/div><\/td>
We ate pizza every Friday in college.<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/p>\n

3. Descriptions of the past<\/span><\/strong>
\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t
Il pleuvait le jour de notre mariage.<\/b>
Requested file could not be found (error code 404). Verify the file URL specified in the shortcode.<\/div><\/td>
It rained on our wedding.<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Les filles \u00e9taient triste de voir leurs amis partir \u00e0 la fin de l'\u00e9t\u00e9.<\/b>
Requested file could not be found (error code 404). Verify the file URL specified in the shortcode.<\/div><\/td>
The girls were sad to see their friends leave at the end of the summer.<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Want to get fancy? You can combine the imparfait with the construction of the pass\u00e9 r\u00e9cent <\/em><\/a>to talk about two things that happened in the past, one right before the other. For example:
\nJe venais de rentrer, quand le t\u00e9l\u00e9phone a sonn\u00e9. <\/strong>[I had just come back in when the phone rang.<\/em>]

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n

Nous venions de partir quand Michel m’a dit “Je crois que j’ai laiss\u00e9 le fer \u00e0 repasser branch\u00e9!” <\/strong>[We had just left when Michael told me “I think I left the iron plugged in!”<\/em>]\u00a0

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n

\u00c0 suivre…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Next week, fourth and final grammar lesson (for now!). We’ll wrap up this series with a little story that incorporates key elements<\/a> of our recent discussions and will help you see how the different tenses function together.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Free stock photo from\u00a0www.pexels.com<\/a>\u00a0[CC0 license]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Welcome to lesson 3 in our mini French Grammar series. After le pass\u00e9 r\u00e9cent and le futur proche, it’s time this week to look at the French tense known as l’imparfait.   L’Imparfait (The imperfect) Like le pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9, le pass\u00e9 simple, and the pass\u00e9 r\u00e9cent, l’imparfait is a tense for talking about things that…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":30044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6,13],"tags":[408503,284,346,432,55189,12514],"class_list":["post-29888","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","category-vocabulary","tag-free-french-lesson","tag-free-french-lessons","tag-french-grammar","tag-french-vocabulary","tag-grammaire-francaise","tag-vocabulaire-francais"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29888"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30120,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29888\/revisions\/30120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}