French Imparfait: Formation, Uses and Examples

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The French imparfait, or imperfect, is a past tense you will hear and read often. It can describe what was happening, what used to happen, and what a person, place or situation was like. It also appears in polite requests and hypothetical si clauses.

English translations such as “was doing” and “used to do” are useful clues, but they are not automatic formulas. French speakers choose between the imparfait and other past tenses according to how they present an event: as background or in progress, as a habit, or as a bounded event seen as a whole.

As a French graduate, I’ll show you how that choice works, then take you through the regular endings, the stem of être, the spelling details that trip learners up, and plenty of examples with audio.

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When Do You Use the Imparfait?

The imparfait presents a past situation without putting its beginning or end in focus. That makes it useful for background, states, habits and actions seen in progress. Context still matters: the same verb can appear in the imparfait or passé composé when the speaker frames the situation differently.

Background and Ongoing Actions

The imparfait often translates as “was” or “were” plus an -ing form when an action was in progress at a past reference point. It can also set the background for another event.

• Je lisais un livre quand tu es arrivé. “I was reading a book when you arrived.” The reading is background in the imparfait; the arrival is presented as an event in the passé composé.
• Il pleuvait quand elle est sortie. “It was raining when she went out.”
• Pendant que je cuisinais, les enfants jouaient. “While I was cooking, the children were playing.” Both actions form part of the same ongoing background.

Length alone does not decide the tense. French can use the passé composé for an action that lasted a long time when the whole period is presented as complete: J’ai travaillé à Paris pendant six mois. “I worked in Paris for six months.”

Repeated Actions and Past Habits

For a past habit or repeated pattern, the imparfait often corresponds to English “used to” or “would”. Time expressions such as tous les jours (“every day”), souvent (“often”) and chaque été (“every summer”) make the pattern clear.

• Quand j’étais enfant, je jouais au tennis tous les jours. “When I was a child, 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.” Here, conversational on means “we” but takes a third-person singular verb.
• Elle prenait toujours le bus pour aller au travail. “She always took the bus to work.”

Past States and Descriptions

The imparfait commonly describes age, appearance, weather, time, feelings and other states that form the setting of a past scene.

• La maison était grande et belle. “The house was big and beautiful.”
• Il faisait froid quand nous sommes partis. “It was cold when we left.”
• Le professeur était gentil et patient avec nous. “The teacher was kind and patient with us.”
• J’avais dix ans et il était huit heures. “I was ten years old, and it was eight o’clock.”

This is a common use, not a rule that every description must take the imparfait. A speaker can use the passé composé to present a change or a bounded assessment, as in Le film a été excellent. “The film was excellent.”

Polite Requests

The imparfait can soften a request or enquiry that refers to the present conversation. This attenuating use is especially common with vouloir (“to want”), souhaiter (“to wish”) and phrases such as je venais… (“I was coming…”).

• Je voulais vous demander un service. “I wanted to ask you a favour.”
• Nous souhaitions réserver une table pour ce soir. “We were hoping to reserve a table for this evening.” This is more formal than a direct On veut réserver…
• Je venais voir si ma commande était prête. “I came to see whether my order was ready.”

Hypothetical Si Clauses

In a present or future hypothetical, French commonly uses si + imparfait in the condition and the present conditional in the result.

• Si j’avais plus de temps, je voyagerais davantage. “If I had more time, I would travel more.”
• Si tu étais ici, nous pourrions en parler. “If you were here, we could talk about it.”

These sentences are hypothetical rather than accounts of the past. Do not put the conditional immediately after si: standard French has si j’avais, not si j’aurais.

How to Form the Imparfait

The six endings are regular:

Subject	Ending
je	-ais
tu	-ais
il, elle, on	-ait
nous	-ions
vous	-iez
ils, elles	-aient

For almost every verb with an ordinary present-tense nous form, the three-step method is:

1. Find the present nous form: nous parlons.
2. Remove -ons to find the stem: parl-.
3. Add the imparfait endings: je parlais, nous parlions, and so on.

Être is the main stem exception: it uses ét-. Impersonal verbs without an ordinary nous form also need to be learned directly, including il pleuvait (“it was raining”) and il fallait (“it was necessary” or “one had to”).

In the traditional reference pronunciation, -ais, -ait and -aient end with the same vowel sound. You therefore hear no difference between je parlais, il parlait and ils parlaient without the surrounding subject or context. The exact vowel quality varies across regions and speakers.

Regular Imparfait Conjugations

The formation method works across the traditional verb groups. Compare parler (“to speak”), finir (“to finish”) and vendre (“to sell”):

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

The stems come straight from nous parlons → parl-, nous finissons → finiss-, and nous vendons → vend-. A verb can be irregular in the present and still follow this imparfait pattern.

Common Stems and the Exception Être

For common verbs, start with the present nous form. The table shows the step that matters; once you have the stem, add the same six endings.

Infinitive	Present nous form	Imparfait stem	Example
avoir (to have)	nous avons	av-	j’avais
faire (to do, to make)	nous faisons	fais-	je faisais
aller (to go)	nous allons	all-	j’allais
vouloir (to want)	nous voulons	voul-	je voulais
pouvoir (can, to be able to)	nous pouvons	pouv-	je pouvais
savoir (to know)	nous savons	sav-	je savais
venir (to come)	nous venons	ven-	je venais
voir (to see)	nous voyons	voy-	je voyais
prendre (to take)	nous prenons	pren-	je prenais

Être does not use the stem of nous sommes. Its imparfait stem is ét-:

Être in the imparfait	Audio
j’étais
tu étais
il/elle/on était
nous étions
vous étiez
ils/elles étaient

Spelling Details to Watch

The endings stay regular, but a few stems look different depending on the letter that follows.

• With -ger verbs such as manger, keep the e before endings beginning with a: je mangeais, il mangeait, elles mangeaient. Drop it before i: nous mangions, vous mangiez.
• With -cer verbs such as commencer, use ç before endings beginning with a: je commençais, elles commençaient. Use plain c before i: nous commencions, vous commenciez.
• Do not remove a written i or y when it meets -ions or -iez. That gives forms such as nous étudiions, vous étudiiez, nous voyions and vous voyiez.

Manger in the imparfait	Audio	Commencer in the imparfait	Audio
je mangeais		je commençais
tu mangeais		tu commençais
il/elle/on mangeait		il/elle/on commençait
nous mangions		nous commencions
vous mangiez		vous commenciez
ils/elles mangeaient		ils/elles commençaient

The final -ait and -aient are pronounced alike in these forms, so subject words and context tell you whether a form is singular or plural.

Imparfait or Passé Composé?

The usual “ongoing versus completed” shortcut helps at first, but it is too rigid on its own. Both tenses refer to the past. The difference is often one of viewpoint.

Imparfait	Passé composé
Background, state or situation in progress	Event presented as a whole
Habit or repeated pattern	Bounded number of occurrences
No beginning or endpoint in focus	Beginning, endpoint, result or change in focus
Je travaillais à Paris en 2020. “I was working in Paris in 2020.”	J’ai travaillé à Paris pendant six mois. “I worked in Paris for six months.”

• Mon frère mangeait quand le téléphone a sonné. “My brother was eating when the phone rang.” The first action supplies the background; the second advances the sequence.
• Il faisait très chaud, alors nous sommes allés à la plage. “It was very hot, so we went to the beach.” The weather sets the scene; the trip is presented as a completed event.
• Il pleuvait. “It was raining.” Compare Il a plu toute la nuit. “It rained all night.” The second action lasted for hours, but the night supplies a completed boundary.

The idea that the passé composé “interrupts” the imparfait is therefore a useful story pattern, not a rule that the first event must be long or the second one sudden.

Imparfait Examples with Audio

In these examples, the verbs in the imparfait are in bold. Notice the time expressions and the role each verb plays rather than translating the tense one word at a time.

English	French	Audio
“When I was a child, I was always asleep at 8 pm.”	Quand j’étais petit, je dormais toujours à 20 h.
“At school, we had English classes every Tuesday.”	À l’école, on avait des cours d’anglais tous les mardis.
“My grandmother often made crêpes for dinner.”	Ma grand-mère préparait souvent des crêpes pour le dîner.
“He used to work in a small bakery on the corner.”	Avant, il travaillait dans une petite boulangerie au coin de la rue.
“When she lived in Paris, she took the metro every day.”	Quand elle vivait à Paris, elle prenait le métro tous les jours.
“You were reading a book while 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.

In the final sentence, written arrivée marks the speaker as feminine; the final e is not pronounced.

How to Practise the Imparfait

Start with one present nous form, build the stem, and write all six endings. Then put two tenses side by side. Describe the background in the imparfait and add one bounded event in the passé composé: Je lisais quand…, Il pleuvait quand…, or Nous dînions quand…

As you continue learning French, collect examples from stories, films and conversations. Ask what each tense is doing in the passage. For more structured practice, try these French exercises and practice resources.

The endings are the easy part. The useful skill is learning to recognise the viewpoint: background, habit or unbounded situation for the imparfait; a bounded event or change for the passé composé. Real examples will make that choice quicker than memorising an “ongoing versus completed” slogan.