Imparfait

Imparfait ("imperfect tense" in English) is a commonly-used past tense in the French language. Imparfait is used to describe background information, or tell of an event in an unspecified amount of time. This is in contrast with the passe compose, which describes a completed action in the past. Imparfait: Quand j'etais une petite fille (when i was a young girl)this was over timePasse compose: quand je suis tombe (when i fell) this happened in an instant
*First, to form the stem used for the imparfait, simply drop the "-ons" from the first-person, plural: nous parl"ons" becomes parl- nous finiss"ons" becomes finiss- nous vend"ons" becomes vend-

*Even most irregular verbs form their imparfait stem in the same way: nous part"ons" becomes part- nous pren"ons" becomes pren- nous av"ons" becomes av- nous fais"ons" 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

See also

*French language
*French grammar
*French verbs
*French verb conjugation
*Passé composé
*Passé simple
*Imperfect tense