A large number of times in French creates difficulties for beginners to learn it. For simplicity, 19 temporary forms are called at times, such as Présent, Imparfait, Passé Composé and others.
In French, Imparfait is one of the first to be studied, along with Présent and Passé Composé. In this article you will find out in what situations Imparfait is used, how it is formed and how it differs from its "friend" - Passé Composé.
When to use Imparfait
In French, Imparfait is a form of the past tense. The past tenses are used when they want to talk about past events. The temporary form Imparfait in French refers to the unfinished past tense. In other words, it is a designation of a process that does not have a clear beginning and end.
To make it clearer, take a look at the following examples:
La jeune fille dansait bien. - The girl was dancing beautifully.
Maman préparait le dinner. - Mom was making dinner.
Paul écrivait une lettre à son ami. - Paul wrote a letter to his friend.
Note that actions are not limited to any time periods. This is the essence of Imparfait’s temporary form - to show the process itself.
Imparfait in French can be compared to Past Continuous in English. If you studied the latter, you will see that these times are very similar. They are used in the same speech situations.
How to Form Imparfait Time
In order to properly form time, you need to remember the action plan. We will analyze the French verb chercher, which translates into Russian as "search".
To begin with, we are looking for an unstressed base, that is, the base of a verb in the first person plural:
- Put the verb in the form 1 of the plural: nous cherchons.
- Drop the ending -ons from the resulting form: cherch-ons = cherch-.
So we got an unstressed base from which we will form Imparfait forms.
To the resulting base, add the endings of Imparfait:
- Je cherch- + -ais
- Tu cherch- + -ais
- Il cherch- + -ait
- Nous cherch- + -ions
- Vous cherch- + -iez
- Ils cherch- + -aient
Je cherchais le cinéma. - I'm looking for a movie theater.
Nous cherchions notre cabinet. - We are looking for our office.
Ils cherchaient l'entrée. - They are looking for an entrance.
Chercher belongs to the first group of verbs. For verbs of the second and third groups there are some peculiarities.
Verbs of the second group in plural forms between the root and the ending have the suffix -iss (Je bâtis. Nous bâtissons. - I am building. We are building). The basis will be bâtiss- in this case.
For the third group, there is one exception - 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. We will understand what their differences are.
I mparfait in French is used if the action is incomplete. Passé Composé, on the contrary, denotes an action that has already taken place.
Compare Imparfait and Passé Composé cases:
- 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 - over. Although the preposition indicates a process, for the French language it is a temporary limitation). - Nous jouions au volleyball. - We played volleyball.
Hier nous avons joué au volleyball jusqu'au soir. - Yesterday we played football until the evening.