Imperfect tense -French

The imperfect tense is a way of describing states and actions that are repeated in the past or ongoing for example, I used to play football, which in french would be Je jouais.

We form this delightful tense by first, taking the present nous form of a verb, removing the ending and adding the endings ais, ais, ait, ion, iez, aient to the stem. These endings are in the order of the pronouns they correspond to:

Je – ais

Tu – ais

Il/elle/on – ait

Nous – ions

Vous – iez

Ils/elles – aient

So continuing the Jouer verb

1. Jouer = Jouons
2. Jouons minus the nous ending = the stem Jou
3. Jou + ais = Jouais
4. Je Jouais = I played

That’s it simple.

Bonne chance, au revoir!