![]() ![]() Nous parlions le latin avec notre professeur. (I really liked to read detective novels.) J’aimais beaucoup lire des romans policiers. Here are some sentences using verbs in the imparfait, as well as their translations: I always found it useful to remember the common phrase “Quand j’étais jeune…” which begins many stories. Just remember the ét- stem, and you will be fine. The endings are the same as all the regular verbs, the stem is the only change. ![]() Être conjugates in the imparfait as follows: ![]() Because we cannot find a stem with our normal methods, we use the stem ét- instead. It is, therefore, the only irregular imparfait conjugation in the French language. Ok, we have the nous form, so we drop the -ons…except, there is not an -ons to drop! In fact, être is the only verb in the French language whose present tense nous form does not end in -ons. However, in conjugating some of the verbs you have worked with before, you might run across the following situation: With the imparfait, however, the endings are the same for every verb, and the stem is formed with the same pattern, as discussed in the previous section. One of the hardest parts of most conjugations is learning the many irregular forms and stems. Verb stem + ending = imparfait Irregular ConjugationsĮarlier, I told you that the imparfait just might be the easiest verb in the French language, and I was telling the truth. Drop the -ons, we have parl-, and then add the endings, and you get the following:Īs you can see, there are only two steps to this tense, making up the following simple rule: It conjugates in the present as nous parlons. So to form the imparfait, you simply combine the stem of the verb with the appropriate ending. The endings are the same for all verbs in the imparfait, and they are as follows: Avoir (to have) conjugates in the present as nous avons, drop the -ons, you have av- as your stem.Īt this point, you need the endings. It does not matter how irregular the verb is in the present tense, all you need is the nous form, minus the -ons at the end. At this point, you drop the -ons at the end, and you have your stem. Parler (to speak), for example, conjugates as nous parlons. To find the stem of the verb, you must first conjugate the verb in the present tense, and take the nous form. As I’m sure most French students are happy to learn, the imparfait is quite possibly the easiest tense in the French language to learn. Regular Conjugationsįorming the imparfait consists of two parts, the verb stem (called la racine), and the verb ending (called la terminaison). At the beginning of each scene, there is usually a description of what was happening, and often in French, the verbs would be in the imparfait. The easiest way to understand its purpose is to think of a play taking place in the past. It is not, however, used for single events. The imparfait is used for descriptions, circumstances, general facts, or recurring events in the past. Its name translate to “imperfect,” and while we do have an imperfect tense in English, it is not the same. The imparfait is one of the main past tenses used in the French Language. ![]()
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