The passé composé tells you what happened: je suis arrivé, j'ai mangé, nous sommes partis. But a story made only of events is like a movie with no set, no weather and no feelings. To describe what things were like, French uses a second past tense, the imparfait (imperfect). It answers questions such as: What was the weather like? How did you feel? What did you use to do every summer? What was going on? English expresses these ideas in several ways — it was cold, I was tired, we used to live in Dakar, I would play outside every day, she was reading — and French uses the imparfait for all of them. The name imparfait means unfinished: the tense shows a situation in progress or a repeated habit, without focusing on a start or an end. The great news is that it is the most regular tense in French: one rule for the stem, one set of endings, and a single exception.
Forming the imparfait in three steps
- Take the nous form of the présent: nous parlons, nous finissons, nous faisons.
- Drop the -ons to get the stem: parl-, finiss-, fais-.
- Add the endings -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient: je parlais, tu finissais, il faisait.
| Subject | Ending | parler (nous parlons) | finir (nous finissons) | faire (nous faisons) | être (stem ét-) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| je / j' | -ais | parlais | finissais | faisais | étais |
| tu | -ais | parlais | finissais | faisais | étais |
| il / elle / on | -ait | parlait | finissait | faisait | était |
| nous | -ions | parlions | finissions | faisions | étions |
| vous | -iez | parliez | finissiez | faisiez | étiez |
| ils / elles | -aient | parlaient | finissaient | faisaient | étaient |
| Infinitive | Nous (présent) | Imparfait stem | Je form | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| avoir | nous avons | av- | j'avais | I had, I used to have |
| aller | nous allons | all- | j'allais | I was going, I used to go |
| vendre | nous vendons | vend- | je vendais | I was selling, I used to sell |
| prendre | nous prenons | pren- | je prenais | I was taking, I used to take |
| boire | nous buvons | buv- | je buvais | I was drinking, I used to drink |
| lire | nous lisons | lis- | je lisais | I was reading, I used to read |
| écrire | nous écrivons | écriv- | j'écrivais | I was writing, I used to write |
| vouloir | nous voulons | voul- | je voulais | I wanted |
The three jobs of the imparfait
| Use | French example | English |
|---|---|---|
| Description: setting the scene, weather, time, age, what people and places looked like | Il faisait beau. La maison était grande. Il était midi. J'avais dix ans. | The weather was nice. The house was big. It was noon. I was ten. |
| States and feelings: what someone felt, thought or wanted | J'avais peur. Elle était fatiguée. Nous voulions partir. | I was afraid. She was tired. We wanted to leave. |
| Habits: what used to happen regularly | Le samedi, je jouais au hockey. Nous allions chez ma tante tous les étés. | On Saturdays, I used to play hockey. We would go to my aunt's every summer. |
| An action in progress (was …ing) | Je lisais quand le téléphone a sonné. | I was reading when the phone rang. |
- Habit signals: d'habitude (usually), tous les jours (every day), chaque été (every summer), souvent (often), toujours (always), le samedi (on Saturdays), autrefois (in the past, once).
- Childhood signals: quand j'étais petit(e) (when I was little), quand j'avais six ans (when I was six), à l'époque (back then).
- Storytelling opener: Il était une fois… (Once upon a time there was…) is in the imparfait because it sets the scene.
Translation: When I was eight, I lived in Dakar, Senegal, with my parents and my grandmother. Our house was small, but it had a big courtyard. It was hot almost all year. Every morning, I took the bus to go to school. At home, we spoke French and Wolof. On Sundays, we would go to the beach with my cousins, and my grandmother would make fish with rice. I was very happy. Now I live in Ottawa and I'm in Grade 9, but I often think about Dakar. Every bolded verb is background: age (avais), description (était, avait, faisait), habits (prenais, parlions, allions, préparait) and a feeling (étais heureux). In Senegal, French is used in schools and government, while Wolof is the most widely spoken everyday language, so many families use both. The last sentence switches to the présent for the writer's life now.
- Description, feelings, habits, actions in progress
- Il pleuvait. (It was raining.)
- J'étais fatigué. (I was tired.)
- A single completed action; what happened next
- Je suis arrivé. (I arrived.)
- J'ai pris un taxi. (I took a taxi.)
Put together: Il pleuvait et j'étais fatigué, alors j'ai pris un taxi. (It was raining and I was tired, so I took a taxi.) The imparfait paints the scene; the passé composé moves the story forward. Choosing between the two in every sentence is a major topic in Grade 10. For now, aim to recognise the imparfait, form it correctly, and use it for description, feelings and habits.