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’écoutais de la musique quand il est arrivé. - I was listening to music when he arrived.
Quand j’étais 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 c’était (it was). For example:
Quand j’étais petit, il y avait des arbres dans notre jardin. – When I was little, there were trees in our garden.
On n’a pas pu aller au parc d’attractions parce que c’était trop fermé. - We couldn’t go to the theme park because it was closed.
