French 13: All Things Will Past

Past Imperfect - IMPARFAIT

French has a few past tenses, one of which is the imperfect (imparfait). You can construct it by taking the present indicative nous form of any verb and replacing the -ons with the imperfect ending. Notice that all the conjugated forms except the nous and vous forms have the same sound.

Subject	Ending	Être	Parler	Manger	Aller
je (j')	-ais	étais	parlais	mangeais	allais
tu	-ais	étais	parlais	mangeais	allais
il/elle/on	-ait	était	parlait	mangeait	allait
nous	-ions	étions	parlions	mangions	allions
vous	-iez	étiez	parliez	mangiez	alliez
ils/elles	-aient	étaient	parlaient	mangeaient	allaient

The only irregular imperfect verb is être, which takes on an ét- root. However, for spelling-changing verbs that end in -ger or -cer (e.g. manger), add an "e" to the root so the consonant remains soft.

Translating the past tense between English and French can be difficult because there is no simple mapping between the English past tenses and the two main French past tenses, the imparfait and the passé composé. pay close attention to what you're trying to express.

The imperfect describes situations, states of mind, and habits in the past. In a story, it sets the scene or background; thus, it often translates to and from the English past continuous tense.

For repeated actions or habits, you can also use constructions with "used to" or "would".

A lot of confusion stems from the versatile English preterit (simple past), which overlaps both French tenses. For instance, the preterit can also be used for habits.

The Imperfect conveys three things from the past:

1. STATES OR SITUATIONS
Use the preterit here to describe mental or physical conditions, scenes, dates or times, weather, etc. Remember that you should never use English continuous tenses for stative verbs. In the examples below, "looked", "smelled", and "understood" are stative verbs.

2. ACTIONS OR PROCESSES
The continuous past can be used here to set up a scene by describing an action or process.

3. A HABIT OR REPEATED ACTION
Note that you shouldn't use the past continuous here, but as mentioned before, you may use the preterit, "used to", or "would".

PASSE COMPOSE - SIMPLE PAST

Compound verbs contain at least two words: a conjugated auxiliary and a participle.
The PC has two conjugated auxiliary verbs: avoir and être. Most verbs use avoir.

A handful of verbs use être. The mnemonic "ADVENT" may help you remember these.

Initial Verb	Opposite Verb	Related Verbs
Arriver (arrive)	partir (leave)
Descendre (descend)	monter (ascend)
Venir (come)	aller (go)	devenir (become), revenir (return)
Entrer (enter)	sortir (leave)	rentrer (re-enter)
Naître (be born)	mourir (die)
Tomber (fall)

The remaining verbs are passer (pass), rester (stay), retourner (return), and accourir (run up). Notice that être verbs involve movement or transformation.
Also, all pronominal verbs use être.
Object pronouns, negations, and inversions appear around the auxiliary.

A participle is a special non-conjugated form of a verb. Most participles are formed by adding an ending to a verb's root.

Group	Ending	Example
-er verbs	-é	manger ⇒ mangé
-ir verbs	-i	choisir ⇒ choisi
-re verbs	-u	vendre ⇒ vendu

Unfortunately, most irregular verbs have irregular participles. For instance, the past participle of venir is venu.

Note that participles vary with gender and number just like adjectives.

Gender	Singular	Plural
Masculine	venu	venus
Feminine	venue	venues

Adverbs appear right before the participle.
past participles can be used as adjectives in French.

A participle that follows avoir is usually invariable. However, if a Direct Object appears before avoir, its participle agrees with the DO.

A participle that follows être agrees with the subject.

However, if a pronominal verb has no DO, then the participle is invariable. For instance, compare s'appeler (transitive) to se telephoner (no DO).

Translating the past tense can be difficult because the English simple past (preterit) overlaps the French passé composé and imparfait (taught in the previous unit). The PC can translate to the preterit when it narrates events or states that began and ended in the past. In this usage, the PC often appears with expressions of time or frequency like il y a, which means "ago" when followed by a duration.

The PC can also translate to the present perfect for actions and states that started in the past and are still true.

The imparfait and passé composé can work together in the same sentence. A verb in the imparfait may be used as a background for an action given by a verb in the passé composé.

Six être verbs can be used transitively with a direct object: monter, descendre, sortir, rentrer, retourner, and passer. When used transitively, they switch from être to take avoir as an auxiliary.

Past participles can be used as adjectives in French.

An avoir participle also agrees with any form of quel + a noun as long as the noun is the object of the compound verb.

This is also true for lequel (plus its other forms) and combien.

Participles do not agree with indirect objects, y, nor en.

In the present indicative tense, c'est can be used to identify or describe nouns. In the passé composé, être takes avoir as an auxiliary. One consequence of this is that ce actually becomes ç' because it must elide before the vowel beginnings of all forms of avoir while still retaining its original soft consonant sound.
Ç'a été un succès ! — This has been a success!
In informal writing, you may also see the ungrammatical form Ça a été. When spoken, both "A" sounds fuse into one long vowel. Erudite Francophones may also use ce fut as a subsitute. This alternative uses the passé simple tense, one of French's literary tenses.

PAST CONDITIONAL
Would Have, Could Have, Should Have.

Expresses action that would have occurred if past circumstances had been different.

There are commonly two parts to a past conditional sentence: a si clause with the unmet condition in the past perfect, and a result clause in the conditional perfect.
Si je l'avais vu, je l'aurais acheté.
The conditional perfect can also be used when the unmet condition is only implied:
À ta place, je l'aurais dit.
Use the conditional perfect to express an unrealized desire in the past:
J'aurais aimé te voir, mais j'ai dû travailler.
The conditional perfect can also report an uncertain / unverified fact, especially in the news:
Il y aurait eu un accident dans le métro.

A compound conjugation, with these two parts:
- conditional of the auxiliary verb (either avoir or être)
- past participle of the main verb

Note: Like all French compound conjugations, the conditional perfect may be subject to grammatical agreement:
- When the auxiliary verb is être, the past participle must agree with the subject
- When the auxiliary verb is avoir, the past participle may have to agree with its direct object

AIMER (auxiliary verb is avoir)
j'	aurais aimé		nous	aurions aimé
tu	aurais aimé		vous	auriez aimé
il, elle	aurait aimé		ils, elles	auraient aimé

DEVENIR (être verb)
je	serais devenu(e)		nous	serions devenu(e)s
tu	serais devenu(e)		vous	seriez devenu(e)(s)
il	serait devenu		ils	seraient devenus
elle	serait devenue		elles	seraient devenues

SUBJONCTIF

The French subjunctive is common and required, in writing and in speech, even in informal conversations, if the main clause has verbs of likes/dislikes, fear, wish, doubt, regret, order, obligation or necessity.

In most cases, the subject in the subordinate clause is different from that in the main clause (otherwise you will use an infinitive).

Usually, the subordinate clause is introduced by the conjunction que, or other conjunctions, like avant que, bien que, afin que, pour que, quoique. (Yet après que needs an indicative.)

Some impersonal expressions automatically prompt a subjunctive, like: il faut que, il est bon que, c’est bien que, il est nécessaire que, il est important que.

Some verbs that are usually constructed with the indicative switch to the subjunctive when they are in the negative, like penser and croire.

Some relative clauses can be found in subjunctive, when the main clause has such expressions as le seul qui/que, le premier qui/que, le dernier qui/que.

The French subjunctive has 4 tenses : Present, Imperfect, Past and Pluperfect. There is no future tense and of the 3 past tenses, only the Subjunctive Past is commonly used.

The Subjunctive Past is a compound tense and as such, the verb uses the same auxiliary être or avoir as in the indicative mood, and the same rules of agreement are applied in the past participle (Re. Tips and Notes in V Compound Past & V Compound Past 2).

To form a subjunctive past, the auxiliary is conjugated in subjunctive present, and the past participle of the verb is added.

Avoir verb:

Subject	Verb
que j’	aie mangé
que tu	aies mangé
qu’il/elle	ait mangé
que nous	ayons mangé
que vous	ayez mangé
qu’ils	aient mangé

Être verb:

Subject	Verb
que je	sois allé(e)
que tu	sois allé(e)
qu’il	soit allé
qu’elle	soit allée
que nous	soyons allé(e)s
que vous	soyez allé(e)s
qu’ils	soient allés
qu’elles	soient allées

Sequence of events

Since there is no Subjunctive Future and the Subjunctive Imperfect and Pluperfect are no longer used in contemporary French, you will have to use :
the present tense for future and present events;
the present tense instead of the imperfect tense;
the past tense instead of the pluperfect tense.

To pick the suitable subjunctive tense in the subordinate clause, you will compare the subordinate clause’s time of event with that of the main clause.

Let's compare with the indicative:

Time in main to time in subordinate	Indicative	Subjunctive: [TENSE vs MEANING]
Present to future	Je crois que tu viendras. - I think that you will come.	J'attends que tu viennes. [PRESENT with a FUTURE meaning] - I am waiting for you to come.
Present to present	J’espère que tu vas bien. - I hope that you are doing well.	Je doute que tu ailles bien. [PRESENTwith a PRESENT meaning] - I doubt that you are doing well.
Past to simultaneous past	Je croyais qu'il faisait froid. - I believed that the weather was cold.	Je ne croyais pas qu'il fasse froid .[PRESENT with a SIMULTANEOUS PAST meaning] - I did not believe that the weather was cold.
Past to earlier past	Je pensais que tu avais mangé assez. - I thought that you had eaten enough.	Je doutais que tu aies mangé assez. [PAST with an EARLIER PAST meaning] - I doubted that you had eaten enough.