The imperfect tense is used to talk about and also describe things that used to happen regularly in the past. Learn how to form sentences using this tense.
There are three steps to form the imperfect tense of all verbs:
English | Subject pronoun | Main verb stem, eg: avoir | Imperfect endings |
---|---|---|---|
I | j' | av | ais |
you (informal) | tu | av | ais |
he/she/it (we) | il/elle/on | av | ait |
we | nous | av | ions |
you (formal, plural) | vous | av | iez |
they | ils/elles | av | aient |
Here's another example – we want to say "I was watching/I used to watch TV" (regarder = to watch):
Subject pronoun | Ending for the imperfect |
---|---|
je - I | ais |
tu - you (informal) | ais |
il/elle/on - he/she/it (we) | ait |
nous - we | ions |
vous - you (formal, plural) | iez |
ils/elles - they | aient |