The Imperfect Tense

1
The Imperfect Tense

• - saying what someone was doing

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• Use
• to say was doing or used to do
• Form
• you need 3 things
• a subject
• the stem
• the correct ending

3

• To form the stem
• decide on the infinitive you need
• find the present tense of this verb
• take the nous part
• remove the ons ending

For example aller allons all
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Now add the correct endings

• ions
• iez
• aient

je tu il / elle/ on

• ais
• ais
• ait

nous vous ils/ elles
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The only exception is
être
être nous sommes BUT stem ét
For example jétais I was vous étiez
you were ils étaient they were
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Some examples

• I was doing je faisais
• he was dancing il dansait
• they were eating ils mangeaient
• we were finishing nous finissions
• you were selling vous vendiez

7
A sneaky tip

• For many er and -re verbs you can simply remove
  the infinitive ending and then add the imperfect
  endings.
• BUT for ir verbs you must add an -iss

je vendais je regardais je finissais
For example vendre regarder finir