Narration: The passé composé and the imparfait Used Together

Question 1

When do you use both passé composé and the imparfait?

Answer 1

To recount past events in French, you will need to use both the passé com- posé and the imparfait, often in the same sentence.

• In English, when we refer to past events, we choose among several forms of past tenses.

She worked. She did work. She has worked.
She was working. She used to work. She would work . . . on Fridays.

Question 2

How to choose between passé composé and imparfait?

Answer 2

Similarly in French, your choice of the passé composé: Elle a travaillé hier (She worked yesterday) or the imparfait: À cinq heures, elle tra- vaillait encore (At five o’clock she was still working) depends on your perception of the past event.

Question 3

When is passé composé used?

Answer 3

The passé composé expresses a completed past action or a sequence of actions. It gives the idea that the action ended in the past or was repeated a countable number of times.

*L’année passée je suis allée deux fois en France (Last year I went to France twice)

Question 4

When is imparfait used?

Answer 4

In contrast, the imparfait indicates ongoing, habitual, and background actions, descriptions, and mental or physical states in the past. It does not focus on the completion of the action. The imparfait sets the scene in the past. The past actions are assumed to be repeated an undetermined number of times.

Quand j’étais jeune, j’allais chez ma tant en été. (When I was young, I used to my aunt’s place in the summer.

Question 5

Can imparfait be interrupted by passé composé?

Answer 5

An action, a feeling, or a situation in the imparfait may be “interrupted” by an action in the passé composé. Compare the first and second verbs in the next three examples:

• J’avais faim quand je me suis réveillé. (I was (felt) hungry when I woke up.
• Georges était malade quand tu es venu. (Georges was ill when you got here)
• Nous jouions aux cartes quand il y a eu une panne d’électricité. (We were playing cards when there was a power outage (a power outage occurred))

Question 6

Examples of the imparfait in the second sentence of each set describes the subject’s state or situation prior to this change.

Answer 6

J’ai eu faim vers midi. (I got [became] hungry around noon)

Avant midi je n’avais pas faim. (Before noon, I was not hungry)

Georges est tombé malade hier soir. (Georges fell ill last night)

Avant sept heures il était en bonne forme. (Before seven o’clock he was fine)