"I was tired." "I lived in Paris." "I read every evening." Three sentences, one English tense: the simple past. In French, all three would use the imparfait… unless you add "for two years" to the second one, and then it switches to the passé composé.
That's the catch. French splits the past into two everyday tenses, and the English simple past doesn't tell you which one to pick. The good news: one question settles almost every case. Let's see what it is, where English helps, and where it leads you astray.
🎭 Two tenses, two roles in a story
Think of the past as a play. The two tenses have different jobs:
- The imparfait is the scenery: what the weather was like, how someone felt, what was going on in the background, what people used to do.
- The passé composé is the action on stage: the events that move the plot forward. What happened? And then what?
Il pleuvait. Je lisais dans ma chambre. Soudain, quelqu’un a frappé à la porte.
→ It was raining. I was reading in my room. Suddenly, someone knocked at the door.
The first two sentences set the scene: nothing has happened yet. The third one is an event: the story moves. So the question to ask yourself is: is this an event in the story, or its background?
🇬🇧 What English tells you (and what it doesn't)
Some English forms are reliable clues:
| English | French | Why |
|---|---|---|
| I was reading when he called. | Je lisais quand il a appelé. | ongoing, background → imparfait |
| We used to go to the seaside every summer. | Nous allions à la mer chaque été. | habit → imparfait |
| I have seen this film. | J’ai vu ce film. | completed event → passé composé |
A bonus for English speakers: the passé composé covers both "I saw" and "I have seen". No need to choose between them in French.
The trouble starts with the simple past, which English uses for everything.
The simple past trap
"I read", "I was", "it rained" can be scenery or events. English doesn't care; French does:
- Quand j’étais petit, je lisais beaucoup. → When I was little, I read a lot. (habit and description: imparfait)
- Hier soir, j’ai lu trois chapitres. → Last night, I read three chapters. (one finished event: passé composé)
Practical tip: if you could say "used to" or "was …ing" in English without changing the meaning, it's the imparfait.
States are usually scenery
Verbs like être, avoir, vouloir, savoir, pouvoir, and the weather, describe a situation rather than an event. In a story, they almost always go into the imparfait: J’étais fatigué et j’avais faim. → I was tired and I was hungry.
A time frame turns it into an event
Give a finished period clear limits (two years, all day, from 2010 to 2015) and French sees it as one whole event, even if it lasted a long time:
- J’ai vécu deux ans à Paris. → I lived in Paris for two years.
- Il a plu toute la journée. → It rained all day.
The same goes for counted repetitions: Il m’appelait souvent (he often called me, a habit) but Il m’a appelé trois fois (he called me three times, counted).
