Passé Composé Vs Imparfait
We guarantee you that this is the best explanation of passé composé vs. imparfait you have ever heard!
Understanding when to use passé composé versus imparfait is probably one of the most difficult things for an English speaker, since you cannot translate literally from English.
Passé composé vs imparfait is mostly a question of specific event vs background or ongoing event.
Imagine 2 pictures: a selfie vs a wide-angle shot...
Table of Contents
What is the French Imperfect Tense?
The French imperfect is a French tense used for the past. It’s called l’imparfait in French.
The imperfect French tense describes actions that were ongoing or repeated in the past: quand j’étais enfant, tous les étés, nous allions en Provence – When I was a child, every summer we went to Provence
The imparfait is a great French tense because it is very regular. Most of the time, if you have a past progressive tense, so a verb + ING in English like in “I was speaking”, you can translate this past progressive into imparfait.
However, the imperfect can also correspond to the English simple past tense like in my example above “I was, we went”, but also to expressions such as ‘used to’. In some situations, when you use “would” in English, we would use the imparfait in French…
We conjugate the imperfect in French by adding the endings -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez and –aient to the root of the present tense nous form of the verb.
Je parlais, nous étudiions, ils choisissaient, elles allaient…
What is the French Passé Composé?
The passé composé is a French tense used for the past. The passé composé corresponds mostly to the English simple past or the present perfect.
The passé composé describes specific actions that were completed in the past : Dans ma jeunesse, une fois, je suis allée au Canada – In my youth, once, I went to Canada.
In spoken French language, the passé composé is always used instead of the passé simple.
We conjugate the passé composé using the auxiliary verbs avoir or être followed by the past participle (le participe passé) of the verb.
J’ai parlé, nous avons étudié, ils ont choisi, elles sont allées…
You may be interested in my free audio guide about the French auxiliary verb être: conjugations and pronunciation.
Now the big question for French students is when to use Passé Composé vs Imparfait.
That’s what I am going to explain in this in-depth lesson.
Why You Cannot Translate Imparfait or Passé Composé Literally
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