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French Imperfect

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You will learn in this lesson: French Imperfect Tense (Imparfait), French Past Progressive.

 

 

The imperfect tense is used in actions that were ongoing in the past at the same time as other actions went on or occurred, the imperfect/ imparfait is the equivalent of the past progressive "was" or "was …-ing” in English, and is usually used for habitual actions in the past, actions of an unspecified duration, in conjunction with the passé composé , wishes or suggestions …the good news is that there is only one ending for all kind of verbs: je -ais, tu -ais, il -ait, nous -ions, vous -iez, ils -aient.

 

French Imperfect
Singular	Plural
je finissais  (I was finishing) tu finissais (you were finishing) il, elle finissait (he/ she was finishing)	nous finissions (we were finishing) vous finissiez (you guys were finishing) ils, elles finissaient (they were finishing)

 

 

French Imperfect
Singular	Plural
je mangeais  (I was eating)* tu mangeais (you were eating)* il, elle mangeait (he/ she was eating)*	nous mangions (we were eating) vous mangiez (you guys were eating) ils, elles mangeaient (they were eating)*

 

* Usually we don’t add an “e” to the stem in the imperfect, but since the letter “g” was the last letter in the stem we had to add an “e”, otherwise the sound will change.

 

Some more verbs in the imperfect tense:

 

French Imperfect
	Parler (to speak)	Aller (to go)	Être (to be)
je	parlais	allais	étais
tu	parlais	allais	étais
il	parlait	allait	était
nous	parlions	allions	étions
vous	parliez	alliez	étiez
ils	parlaient	allaient	étaient

 

 

 

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