5.3 Imperfect Tense

• The imperfect tense can be used to talk about the past and translates to what was happening, what used to happen and what was ongoing when something else happened
• Form the imperfect by taking the nous form of the present tense, removing the -ons ending and adding the imperfect endings
• je …ais - I was / used to …
• tu …ais - you were / used to …
• il/elle/on …ait - he/she/we was/were / used to …
• nous …ions - we were / used to …
• vous …iez - you were / used to …
• ils/elles …aient - they were / used to …
• The only irregular verb in the imperfect tense is être and the stem is ét