Imparfait

The imperfect tense should be used in French to describe an action that was happening, being repeated or incomplete in a certain point in the past. It is the perfect tense to make descriptions or tell histories of events that occurred in the past.

To form the imperfect of any verb except être, drop the –ons of the nous form in the present tense and add the imperfect endings.

In the example below, aller in the nous form of the present tense is allons. Removing the termination “-ons”, we have the radical “all”. Adding the terminations ais, ais, ait, ions, ies and aient to the radical, we will have the cojugation in the imperfect tense. For être, use the radical "et".

Je allais

Tu allais

Il allait

Nous allions

Vous allies

Ils allaient

Examples:

Quand j’étais petit, j’avais les cheveux longs.

When I was young, I had long hair.

Elle chantait tellement bien quand elle était jeune.

She sang so well when she was young.