The imperfect tense describes an ongoing action in the past or something that used to happen. Get to grips with using the imperfect tense and check your understanding with a quiz.
The imperfect tense is a past tense that describes how things used to be, what used to happen and is used to give opinions about past events
When to use the imperfect tense
The imperfect tense is used to describe something that used to happen, and to describe something or someone in the past. It can be used to describe what was happening when something else took place. For example:
J鈥櫭ヽoutais de la musique quand il est arriv茅. - I was listening to music when he arrived.
Quand j鈥櫭﹖ais plus jeune, je jouais au tennis chaque samedi. - When I was younger, I used to play tennis every Saturday.
The most commonly used expressions in the imperfect tense are: il y avait (there was/were) and 肠鈥櫭﹖补颈迟 (it was). For example:
Quand j鈥櫭﹖ais petit, il y avait des arbres dans notre jardin. 鈥 When I was little, there were trees in our garden.
On n鈥檃 pas pu aller au parc d鈥檃ttractions parce que 肠鈥櫭﹖补颈迟 trop ferm茅. - We couldn鈥檛 go to the theme park because it was closed.