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Here are a few tidbits about how to know what tense to use between the
two. Let's start with the easy part:
| When in English you use: |
In French, you'd use: |
example: |
| I was eating |
Imparfait |
Je mangeais |
| I used to eat |
Imparfait |
Je mangeais |
| I would eat (with a past meaning, not a conditional one) |
Imparfait |
Je mangeais |
| I have eaten |
Passé Composé |
J'ai mangé |
| I ate |
This is where it's getting complicated |
|
The Imparfait is usually used in the following conditions:
| A suggestion |
What if we ate? |
Si nous mangions? |
A description in the past:
-Time:
-Weather:
-People and Places:
-Feelings and Emotions: |
-It was 1AM.
-It was cold.
-He was tall.
-I was sad. |
-Il était une heure du matin.
-Il faisait froid.
-Il était grand.
-J'étais triste. |
| A habitual action in the past |
-On the weekends, we went to the beach.
(notice how you can reformulate this sentence in the following ways:
-On the weekends, we used to go to the beach.
-On the weekends, we would go to the beach. |
-Le week-end, nous allions à la plage. |
The Passé Composé is usually used in the following conditions:
| An action that occured at a specific point in time |
Yesterday, she arrived at 8. |
Hier, elle est arrivée à 8
heures. |
| An action that occured for a specified length of time. |
He worked for 3 hours. |
Il a travaillé pendant 3 heures. |
| An action that occured for a specified number of times. |
They went to Europe twice. |
Ils sont allés deux fois en Europe. |
Generally speaking you would use the Imparfait when the action you're talking
about is more or less unspecific, where no beginning, ending, duration, number
of occurrences is mentioned or emphasized.
When you're being more specific, you would tend to use the Passé Composé
instead.
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