Passé Composé vs Imparfait: One Story, Two Past Tenses

What does each tense do in a story?

Tex's French Grammar, an open grammar from the University of Texas at Austin, gives two questions. The passé composé answers "What happened?" The imparfait usually answers "What was going on when something else happened?"

A story needs both. The French course that goes with Tex, Français interactif, puts it this way: the passé composé carries the plot, the events in the order they happened. The imparfait gives the background, which isn't in strict order: the setting, actions in progress, and habits.

Français interactif gives a quick test: cover every imparfait sentence in a story. The passé composé sentences that are left should still tell the events in order.

The imparfait does a second job. It states habits, the things you used to do. Say these two: Quand j'étais petit, je collectionnais les timbres. (When I was little, I collected stamps.) and Quand j'étais petit, je me levais toujours tôt. (When I was a boy, I always got up early.) A woman says petite in both; the English "a boy" fits petit only.

The English trap above is about this job. English often says "collected," not "used to collect," but French still needs the imparfait for a habit: Tom appelait Mary tous les jours. (Tom called Mary every day.)

Which time words point to which tense?

Tex lists words that often go with each tense. They are hints, not rules.

What decides, Tex says plainly, is the whole context, not the time word. Tex shows un jour with both tenses. Say these two and listen to the first verb in each: vendait is in the imparfait, and ont expulsé is in the passé composé.

Treat the table as a first guess. Then ask the two questions again: did it happen, or was it going on?

Why are être and avoir usually in the imparfait?

Tex says that in a story, verbs like être, avoir, pouvoir, vouloir and savoir usually go in the imparfait, because they mostly describe a state: J'avais peur. (I was afraid.) Je voulais te parler. (I wanted to talk to you.)

When these verbs do go in the passé composé, Tex says they mark a change of state. Its own pair uses avoir for age. Say both and listen for j'avais against j'ai eu.

A second clue from Tex: a stretch of time with a clear start and end usually takes the passé composé, even when it lasted years. An open-ended "back then" takes the imparfait.

A woman says mariée: that word describes the subject, so it takes the -e. The été doesn't change, and neither does the conduit of Elle a conduit. And with avoir and an object after the verb, a woman says j'ai sorti les poubelles too: no -e. Going out is different: that's je suis sortie.

How do you build the passé composé?

The passé composé has two parts: the present tense of a helper verb, avoir or être, and a past participle. Most verbs use avoir. Regular verbs make the participle like this, according to Tex:

Many common verbs break the pattern. Tex's list includes avoir → eu, être → été, faire → fait, prendre → pris, voir → vu and boire → bu, and Wiktionary gives conduire → conduit, as in Elle a conduit above.

Verbs on the être list break it too, but only a few. Tex gives venir → venu, devenir → devenu, revenir → revenu, naître → né and mourir → mort, and says the other être verbs follow the pattern, as in aller → allé and partir → parti. Check others in the conjugation lookup. Say J'ai fait la vaisselle. (I washed the dishes.) and J'ai perdu mes papiers. (I lost my papers.)

With avoir, the participle doesn't change for the subject. Tex's tables keep parlé for every person. It can change when an object pronoun like la or les comes before the verb. Tex covers that rule on its page on direct object pronouns.

To say "not," put ne and pas around the helper verb: Je ne suis pas sorti dimanche dernier. (I didn't go out last Sunday. A woman says sortie.) Before a vowel, ne becomes n', so with avoir it's je n'ai pas parlé.

Which verbs take être, and what changes?

A smaller group uses être. Tex describes many of them as verbs of coming and going that take no direct object, plus being born and dying.

For the verbs on this list, the participle agrees with the subject. Add -e for a feminine subject, -s for a plural one, and -es for a feminine plural one.

The list has edges. Tex says monter, descendre, sortir, passer and retourner can take a direct object, and then they switch to avoir. Compare Je suis sorti with J'ai sorti les poubelles. (I took out the trash.)

Not every movement verb is on the list: courir (to run) and marcher (to walk) take avoir, as in J'ai marché. (I walked.) Wiktionary gives the participle of courir as couru.

Tex adds that reflexive verbs, the ones with se, also take être. Don't build the passé composé of a se verb from this page. The agreement table above doesn't apply to them, and leaving the ending off isn't the rule either; check a verb table when you need one.

Wiktionary lists rentrer with both helpers, too, and with an object it means "to bring in." Treat it like the five verbs above: je suis rentré (I came home), but with an object, avoir.

How do you build the imparfait?

Take the nous form of the present and drop -ons: nous parlons gives parl-, nous finissons gives finiss-. Tex names one verb that breaks this: être, whose stem is ét-. Then add the endings.

Tex points out that -ais, -ait and -aient all sound the same, so four of the six forms sound alike. One spelling detail: verbs like voyager and commencer keep their soft sound with an added e or a ç before endings that start with a: je voyageais, je commençais. The nous and vous forms don't need it, so drop the e or ç there: nous voyagions, nous commencions.

How do you practice it today?

Use one scene and one event, and change one piece at a time. Start from Quand je suis rentré, j'avais très faim. A woman says rentrée here and adds -e to every participle below. In round 1, keep Quand je suis rentré and change the state. In round 2, keep j'avais très faim and change the event.

All three event verbs are on the être list, so keep je suis; don't swap in a verb from outside the list without checking which helper it takes.

Count it in Spoken Minutes. On a 5-minute day, spend 1 minute on yesterday's Cold Say-Back and 4 on the swaps. On a 10-minute day, it's 2 and 8. On a 20-minute day, it's 3, then 10 on the swaps and 7 on a four-sentence story about last weekend: two scene sentences in the imparfait, two events in the passé composé. Then run the Français interactif test: drop the scene sentences and check that the events still come in order.

On the first day of the whole 90-day plan there's nothing to say back, so give those minutes to the swaps; after that, the Cold Say-Back stays first. The drill and the split are this site's House routine, untested with learners. Log the minutes in your Mile Log.

If -ais and -ait blur together, that's expected; French pronunciation covers the letters you stop saying at the ends of words. French articles is a good next page, and the French subjunctive comes after. The French starting plan shows where the past tenses fit.

Tomorrow, with nothing in front of you, run a Cold Say-Back: say "When I arrived, there was no one there" and "It was raining when I got on the bus this morning" in French, then check them here. A woman says arrivée and montée.