imperfect tense for french?

Question

sooo. i don't get it. like when/how do i use it?
example in book: il ETAIT 7 heures et demie quand elle EST RENTREE (It was 7:30 when she RETURNED HOME)
& it also says "the imperfect tense tis used to describe an ongoing condtion or a repeated/imcomplete action in the past/not telling the specific time.
but if it says "7:30", isn't that a specific time?

AHH SO CONFUSED. fix it plz?

Answer 1

I know what you mean as this is really confusing! :)
The explanation that finally helped me was the following:

Imagine a theatre play. There is the stage with all the things on it and the time the play is set in and so on. If you were to describe all that, you would do it in IMPARFAIT ("il était"). For example "It was in Paris on a dark November night; Isabelle was sitting alone in her room reading a book"... and any description of the room like "there was a huge cupboard yet dresses were lying all over the floor" or whatever... "Her father wanted her to marry Henri but she loved Pierre..." and so on and so on... Do you get it? Any kind of description of the setting, of the whole situation. Nothing has actually happened yet in the play, you have just been made familiar with all the "background". Yes? That's all in IMPARFAIT.

Then the action starts. Suddenly, Babette runs into the room and shouts "Please help me quick!" Even if she came slowly into the room, or even if nothing more happened than that Isabelle turned the page of her book, when telling your friends about the play the next day, you would use PASSE COMPOSE (like "ést rentrée") for these things because they are part of the action of the story, they are what is happening on stage.

The situation (background, stage, setting) is what you convey with IMPARFAIT.
Action, that's the idea you want to convey with PASSE COMPOSE.

So in your example now, "il était 7 heures et demie" describes the situation, that which was already given. "elle ést rentrée" is the action, it's what has actually happened.
If you imagine it in the theatre play, there would be a clock with that time of 7:30 hanging on the wall in the background. Sitting in the audience you see that it's 7:30 and wait for something to happen. And happen it does: she returns home.

Does it make sense? I hope so. Because it really helped me to forget about all the explanations and just always differentiate between stage and action.

The explanations (like the silly thing about the specific time) don't work because it always depends on what you would like to convey. You might like to convey that she was on her way home as the clock struck 7:30. Then it would be the other way round: She was on her way home would be the "stage" (the situation as it is when the action sets in) and the fact that the clock struck 7:30 would be the action because you want to convey this as what is happening. Hence, "she was on her way home" would be in IMPARFAIT and "when the clock struck 7:30" would be in PASSE COMPOSE. Just because as a narrator you see that as the action. It depends on your story, really. So it's futile to think in terms of all these explanations. I find that just getting a feel for it helped me out of the confusion.
To decide which form of past tense to use in each case, I just kept asking myself:

Is this a description of the SITUATION here (->imparfait),
or is it the ACTION (->passé composé) ?

Hope I have helped you rather than confused you more. Maybe try giving it some time to sink in, because I'm positive you can develop a gut feeling for it.

Answer 2

Look : in French there are 2 (two) tenses for a past ongoing description : Imperfect (imparfait) emphasizing an event going on in the past- with a duration, and the Past tense delineating a fact or event which just happened-very short duration.
It must refers to "time" as a time period rather than clock time.
You can always say "il e'tait.....heures", for one first notices time and then the event. This 's taken and used in the investigations's
forms by policemen or detectives or authorities, and remained in use.-
Ciao........John-John.

Answer 3

Imperfect means unfinished (perfect actually means finished). Of course, if the verb is in a different tense, it will conjugated differently, I'm not sure what you expected! Try describing a story using either the stretch motion (with both hands) or the stop motion (hitting your palm with the side of the other straight hand). The stretching will be imparfait. It describes situations, not actions or one-time events.

Answer 4

imperfect tense is usually a continous or repeated action. i.e. in that sentence it was 7 o'clock for an extended period of time so its imperfect, but she returned home happened once and only once and then was completely over. do the snap your fingers test. that helps to know if its imperfect or not.

btw the verb etre is almost always in imperfect tense, just assume if you are using etre in the past that its imperfect

Answer 5

It sets up a descriptive frame. You should see it as a background on which the punctual action of the "passé simple" takes place.
I hope it will help you.

Answer 6

imperfect tense is past tense.

RETURNED HOME is past tense.

7:30 is a previous time.

get a french dictionary that tells you how to conjugate those words.