Imparfait
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Imparfait (imperfect tense in English) is a commonly-used past tense in the French language. In contrast with Passé Composé which may express that an event occurred at an unknown time in the past, Imparfait always needs a reference time (anything from a fleeting instant to a very long span), which is not always expressed in words but is known to all parties of the conversation. Imparfait is used to express a condition or an action ongoing or repeated during the reference time.
- First, to form the stem used for the imparfait, simply drop the -ons from the first-person, plural:
nous parlons becomes parl- nous finissons becomes finiss- nous vendons becomes vend-
- Even most irregular verbs form their imparfait stem in the same way:
nous partons becomes part- nous prenons becomes pren- nous avons becomes av- nous faisons becomes fais-
- The only verb that wanders from this pattern is être, to be. Its imparfait stem is ét-.
- Once the stem is found, simply add the following endings:
je -ais nous -ions tu -ais vous -iez il -ait ils -aient
- An example of a verb conjugated (être) in the imparfait:
j' étais tu étais il, elle, on était nous étions vous étiez ils, elles étaient
