The large number of tenses in French makes it difficult for beginners to learn it. For simplicity, 19 temporary forms are sometimes named, such as Présent, Imparfait, Passé Composé and others.
In French, Imparfait is one of the first tenses studied, along with Présent and Passé Composé. In this article, you will learn in what situations Imparfait is used, how it is formed and how it differs from its "comrade" - Passé Composé.
When using Imparfait
In French, Imparfait is a form of the past tense. Past tenses are used when they want to talk about past events. The temporary form Imparfait in French denotes the unfinished past tense. In other words, it is the designation of a process that has no clear beginning and end.
To make it clearer, take a look at the following examples:
La jeune fille dansait bien. - The girl danced beautifully.
Maman préparait le dinner. - Mom cooked dinner.
Paul écrivait une lettre à son ami. - Pavel was writing a letter to his friend.
Note that the actions are not limited to any time periods. In thatand there is the essence of the temporary form Imparfait - to show the process itself.
Imparfait in French is comparable to the Past Continuous in English. If you have studied the latter, you will see that these times are very similar. They are used in the same speech situations.
How to form time Imparfait
In order to correctly form the time, you need to remember the action plan. Let's analyze the French verb chercher, which translates into Russian as "search".
First, we are looking for an unstressed stem, that is, the stem of the verb in the first person plural:
- Put the verb into the 1st person plural form: nous cherchons.
- Discard the ending -ons from the resulting form: cherch-ons=cherch-.
So we got an unstressed base, from which we will form Imparfait forms.
Add the endings Imparfait to the resulting base:
- Je cherch- + -ais
- Tu cherch- + -ais
- Il cherch- + -ait
- Nous cherch- + -ions
- Vous cherch- + -iez
- Ils cherch- + -aient
Je cherchais le cinema. - I'm looking for a cinema.
Nous cherchions notre cabinet. - We are looking for our office.
Ils cherchaient l'entrée. - They're looking for the entrance.
Chercher belongs to the first group of verbs. Verbs of the second and third groups have their own characteristics.
Verses of the second group in the plural forms between the root and the ending have a suffix -iss (Je bâtis. Nousbatissons. - I build. We are building). The basis in this case will be bâtiss-.
There is one exception for the third group - the verb être: nous sommes, but nous étions.
What is the difference between Imparfait and Passé Composé
In French, Imparfait and Passe Composé are two past tenses that are often confused. Let's figure out what their differences are.
Imparfait in French is used if the action is incomplete. Passé Composé, on the other hand, denotes an action that has already taken place.
Compare the cases of Imparfait and Passé Composé:
-
Je mangeais le pain beurré. - I ate bread and butter.
J'ai mangé le pain beurré. - I ate bread and butter.
-
Il pleuvait. - It was raining.
Il a plu pendent trois heures. - It rained for three hours. (Pendent - during. Despite the fact that the preposition indicates the process, for the French language it is a temporary restriction).
-
Nous jouions au volleyball. - We played volleyball.
Hier nous avons joué au volleyball jusqu'au soir. - Yesterday we played football until the evening.
