L'Imparfait

After my short holiday from learning French mutated into an extended strike - how fitting is it that my first lesson upon return is about l'imparfait?

The imperfect is not only the lapsed débutante de français, moi - but the French past tense that wants you to know there's a another reason to learn the nous and vous verb forms in the present tense.

I hadn't been bothering to completely conjugate all the verbs that I've been learning. I can speak for myself: Je parle anglais. I can turn a simple sentence into a question for my teacher: Parles-tu anglais? (in the familiar because, oui, je tutoie!). I can also tell you about somebody, he or she as easily as "je": il parle/elle parle/on parle anglais! (tu also likes sharing verb forms with je on many occassions.)

I was basically content to stumble when conjugating the nous and vous forms because they rarely came up. That is, until I took a trip into the French imperfect past. Suddenly they are the foundation upon which habits and states of beings are built - just replace the endings in the nous or vous present form:

parler = nous parlons, vous parlez we speak, you (formal) speak

boire = nous buvons, vous buvez we drink, you (formal) drink
(je bois, tu bois, il/elle/on boit, ils/elles boivent)


with the proper imperfect endings:

je parlais I was speaking, I used to speak
tu parlais
il/elle/on parlait
nous parlions
vous parliez
ils/elles parlaient

je buvais I was drinking, I used to drink
tu buvais
il/elle/on buvait
nous buvions
vous buviez
ils/elles buvaient

Of course there are exceptions... but that's when memorizing and quizzing yourself can help. Like I now have to, too. Being imperfect isn't easy.


La photo: Street Art à San Antonio, Texas. Octobre 2004.