Qui ils sont - Grammar
French: AQA A Level, topic 5.1.4
The imperfect tense in French
The imperfect tense is used to describe something that we ‘used to’ do or something that used to happen, what things were like in the past or something that was in the process of happening in the past.
Format
- To form the imperfect tense in French, we need to put the verb we want to use into the nous form of the present tense first without the +ons ending.
- This gives us the stem of the verb.
- Then we add the specific imperfect tense endings to this stem.
Endings
- Je + stem + ais
- Tu + stem + ais
- Il/elle/on + stem + ait
- Nous + stem + ions
- Vous + stem + iez
- Ils/elles + stem + aient
Example
For example, let’s take the regular verb jouer = to play
The first step of forming the imperfect tense is to put this verb in the nous form of the present tense.
- This gives us nous jouons
We need to now remove the +ons ending from jouons
- This leaves us with nous jou
We now need to add the appropriate imperfect tense endings to this newly found stem
- We now have nous + jou + ions = nous jouions
- 🡪 We used to play / We were playing
- We now have nous + jou + ions = nous jouions
Exceptions
- We must also remember the irregular verbs!
- Their stems will also look like their nous form of the present tense (where we then just add on the imperfect endings to them).
- Avoir = Av+
- Attendre = Attend+
- Faire = Fais+
- Finir = Finiss+
- Être = Et+
- Note that the stem for être is different for the imperfect tense.
Examples
I was finishing would be Je finissais
She used to be would be Elle était
- Can you see how these irregular verbs have been formed using the correct 2 steps?
- They have an irregular stem where we then add an imperfect tense ending.
Test yourself on Qui ils sont - Grammar
Which verb is not in the imperfect tense ?
Which verb is not in the imperfect tense ?
Which verb is not in the imperfect tense ?
Which verb is not in the imperfect tense ?