French Grammar Explained /
Imperfect I
Do you remember the past tense we use in French?
Oui, le passé composé. J'ai appris ma leçon.
Good! Then today, let's have a look at the other past tense used in French: l'imparfait !
As if one past tense was not enough...
Don't worry, I'll keep this simple!
In French, l'imparfait is another very important past tense. It has several meanings but we'll just focus on one for now.
Look at this example:
À 10 ans, je jouais au football tous les jours.
In this example, the verb jouer is conjugated in the imparfait to express a habit someone had at 10 years old.
Does this mean something I used to do before? Like playing with empty bottles of water?
Well, that's a strange habit but yes! You got it!
À 10 ans je jouais avec des bouteilles d'eau vides.
Bravo!
Let's have a look at the conjugation of the imparfait for the -er verbs.
| parler |
|---|---|
je | parlais |
tu | parlais |
il / elle | parlait |
nous | parlions |
vous | parliez |
ils / elles | parlaient |
Remember that je parlais, tu parlais, il parlait, elle parlait, ils parlaient and elles parlaient will be pronounced the same way, despite their different writing!