French Imparfait: Uses, Conjugations, and Examples
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Imparfait is the French imperfect tense, and you’ll hear it often in daily life. It’s used for ongoing actions in the past, similar to the English past continuous tense, such as “I was doing,” “I was going,” and “I was studying.” But that’s not it — it can also mean “to be used to” depending on the context, and can express repeated actions.
As a French graduate, I have some tips on how to study, conjugate, and recognize the imparfait. In this article, we’ll start by understanding what imparfait is, and then move on to conjugating verbs in this tense. All with examples and tables!
Table of contents
- When Do You Use the Imparfait ?
- How to Conjugate French Verbs in Imparfait
- Regular Verb Conjugations in French Imparfait
- Irregular Verb Conjugations in French Imparfait
- Verbs With Spelling Changes
- Imparfait vs. Passé Composé
- Example Sentences and Dialogues with Imparfait
- Use Imparfait As Much As Possible to Master it!
When Do You Use the Imparfait?
You’ll hear imparfait when people talk about actions, states of being, and situations in the past. These actions are often ongoing, repeated, or habitual. Don’t worry if this all sounds a little too vague — we’ll look at some examples to make them clearer!
Ongoing Actions in the Past
Similar to the English past continuous tense, we use imparfait for ongoing actions in the past. For example, if someone says “I was eating” instead of “I ate,” we feel like the action of eating was longer and went on for a while.
It’s similar in French — je mangeais is “I was eating,” conjugated as the French imparfait. Here are other examples:
- Je lisais un livre quand tu es arrivé. “I was reading a book when you arrived.” (Here, lisais (“was reading” is in imparfait and es arrivé (“arrived”) is in passé composé (another past tense). “Reading” is the ongoing action, and “arrived” is the action that interrupted it.)
- Il pleuvait quand elle est sortie. “It was raining when she went out.”
Repeated Actions and Past Habits
In English, we say “used to” to talk about past habits, childhood memories, and things we did regularly in the past.
French expresses similar concepts with the imparfait.
- Quand j’étais petit, je jouais au tennis tous les jours. “When I was little, I used to play tennis every day.”
- On allait chez mes grands-parents chaque été. “We used to go to my grandparents’ house every summer.”
- Elle prenait toujours le bus pour aller au travail. “She always used to take the bus to go to work.”
Descriptions in the Past
“The house was beautiful.”
“The weather was bad.”
“She was very happy.”
All these sentences describe something in the past, whether that’s a place, a person, or the weather. In French, you’d use imparfait to make such descriptions. Let’s look at the following sentences:
- La maison était grande et belle. “The house was big and beautiful.”
- Il faisait froid hier. “It was cold yesterday.”
- Le professeur était gentil et patient avec nous. “The teacher was kind and patient with us.”
Polite Requests
Imparfait is often used in polite settings that are not necessarily related to the past. This is similar to the English phrase “I wanted to ask you a favor.” Here, “wanted” is conjugated in the past tense for extra politeness.
In French, you’ll see this especially with verbs like vouloir (“to want”), souhaiter (“to wish”), and aimer (“to like”).
- Je voulais vous demander un service. “I wanted to ask you a favor.”
- Nous souhaitions réserver une table pour ce soir. “We wish to reserve a table for this evening.”
How to Conjugate French Verbs in Imparfait
Good news: imparfait conjugations are quite regular. But there are some common irregular verbs you need to pay attention to.
Let’s start with regular verbs:
Regular Verb Conjugations in French Imparfait
When conjugating French verbs, we have three main groups based on their infinitive endings:
- Regular first group verbs ending with -er
- Regular second group verbs ending with -ir
- Irregular third group verbs ending with -re, -oir, -ir, and -er
The imparfait conjugations for all three groups follow the same pattern:
1. Look the nous form of the verb in the present tense (for example, the nous form of parler is parlons.)
2. Remove the -ons ending to find the stem (when we remove the -ons from parlons, we’re left with parl. This is our stem.)
3. Add the imparfait endings to the stem:
- -ais for je
- -ais for tu
- -ait for il/elle/on
- -ions for nous
- -iez for vous
- -aient for ils/elles
Let’s conjugate the verb parler (“to speak”) in imparfait for all the persons:
1. Present tense nous form: nous parlons
2. Remove -ons to find the stem: parl-
3. Add imparfait endings: - je parlais
- tu parlais
- il/elle/on parlait
- nous parlions
- vous parliez
- ils/elles parlaient
Many other verbs follow this pattern in imparfait. You can see how similar the imparfait conjugation is for parler, (“to speak”) finir (“to finish”), and vendre (“to sell”), although they all have different endings.
| Parler | Audio | Finir | Audio | Vendre | Audio |
| je parlais | je finissais | je vendais | |||
| tu parlais | tu finissais | tu vendais | |||
| il/elle/on parlait | il/elle/on finissait | il/elle/on vendait | |||
| nous parlions | nous finissions | nous vendions | |||
| vous parliez | vous finissiez | vous vendiez | |||
| ils/elles parlaient | ils/elles finissaient | ils/elles vendaient |
Irregular Verb Conjugations in French Imparfait
It’s possible to find the stems of many irregular verbs by looking at their present tense nous forms. Then, you can add the imparfait endings to conjugate the verbs.
Here are some examples:
- avoir (“to have”) → nous avons → av- → j’avais, tu avais, il/elle/on avait, nous avions, vous aviez, ils/elles avaient
- faire (“to make”) → nous faisons → fais- → je faisais, tu faisais, il/elle/on faisait, nous faisions, vous faisiez, ils/elles faisaient
- aller (“to go”) → nous allons → al- → j’allais, tu allais, il/elle/on allait, nous allions, vous alliez, ils/elles allaient
- vouloir (“to want”) → nous voulons → voul- → je voulais, tu voulais, il/elle/on voulait, nous voulions, vous vouliez, ils/elles voulaient
- pouvoir (“to be able to”) → nous pouvons → pouv- → je pouvais, tu pouvais, il/elle/on pouvait, nous pouvions, vous pouviez, ils/elles pouvaient
- savoir (“to know”) → nous savons → sav- → je savais, tu savais, il/elle/on savait, nous savions, vous saviez, ils/elles savaient
- venir (“to come”) → nous venons → ven- → je venais, tu venais, il/elle/on venait, nous venions, vous veniez, ils/elles venaient
- voir (“to see”) → nous voyons → voy- *je voyais, tu voyais, il/elle/on voyait, nous voyions, vous voyiez, ils/elles voyaient
- prendre (“to take”) → nous prenons → pren- → je prenais, tu prenais, il/elle/on prenait, nous prenions, vous preniez, ils/elles prenaient
That said, there’s one verb you should pay special attention to, and it’s être (“to be”). In imparfait, it’s stem is ét- which isn’t the case in its present tense nous form.
Here is how it’s conjugated in imparfait:
| Être in imparfait | Audio |
| j'étais | |
| tu étais | |
| il/elle/on était | |
| nous étions | |
| vous étiez | |
| ils/elles étaient |
Verbs With Spelling Changes
Finally, there are some verbs that follow the regular imparfait conjugations but have small spelling changes to maintain proper pronunciation.
This mainly applies to:
- -ger verbs like manger (“to eat”). In imparfait, it would be je mangeais instead of je mangais* for pronunciation purposes. If we wrote je mangais, the g would sound like the “g” in “green,” which is incorrect.
- -cer verbs like *commencer (“to start”). Similarly, you would write the imparfait as je commençais instead of commencais.
That said, they still use the same endings as the other verbs:
| Manger in Imparfait | Audio | Commencer in Imparfait | Audio |
| je mangeais | je commençais | ||
| tu mangeais | tu commençais | ||
| il/elle mangeait | il/elle/on commençait | ||
| nous mangions | nous commencions | ||
| vous mangiez | vous commenciez | ||
| ils/elles mangeait | ils/elles commençaient |
Imparfait vs. Passé Composé
Learners often confuse imparfait and passé composé. Here are their key differences:
Imparfait is for ongoing, repeated, or habitual actions in the past. Passé composé is for distinct, completed events. Sometimes, you’ll see both of them in the same sentence, especially when passé composé interrupts a long action described by imparfait.
- Mon frère mangeait (imparfait) quand le téléphone a sonné (passé composé). “My brother was eating when the phone rang.”
In other contexts, you’ll see imparfait describing how things were, what the scene looked like, or someone’s emotions, while passé composé will be used for completed actions. - Il faisait (imparfait) très chaud, du coup on est allés (passé composé) à la plage. ‘It was very hot, so we went to the beach”
Example Sentences and Dialogues with Imparfait
Now that we know what imparfait is, let’s take a look at some example sentences. In each example, you’ll see the verbs conjugated in imparfait in bold.
Once you’ve studied these examples, use them as an inspiration to form your own sentences. This way, you’ll practice the imparfait conjugation, and have a better understanding of when it’s used.
| English | French | Audio |
| “When I was a child, I always slept at 8 pm.” | Quand j'étais petit, je dormais toujours à 20h. | |
| “At school, we had English classes.” | À l'école, on avait des cours d’anglais tous les mardis. | |
| “My grandmother often prepared crepes for dinner.” | Ma grand-mère préparait souvent des crêpes pour le dîner. | |
| “Before, he used to work in a small bakery at the corner of the street.” | Avant, il travaillait dans une petite boulangerie au coin de la rue. | |
| “When she lived in Paris, she used to take the metro everyday.” | Quand elle vivait à Paris, elle prenait le métro tous les jours | |
| “You were reading a book when the children were playing in the garden.” | Vous lisiez un livre pendant que les enfants jouaient dans le jardin. | |
| “They were talking about their plans when I arrived.” | Ils discutaient de leurs projets quand je suis arrivée. |
Use Imparfait As Much As Possible to Master it!
The best way to learn the imparfait’s uses and conjugations is to practice! While you continue studying French, look for imparfait in films, songs, and books, or make up your own sentences. With time, you’ll become a natural at recognizing when to use imparfait and finding the right conjugations for each verb.
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