French Past Tense: Passé Composé vs Imparfait Tense in French Explained

Learning French past tense feels overwhelming at first because French has several ways to talk about the past. The good news? For everyday conversation, you really only need to master two: passé composé and imparfait. These two tenses handle about 90% of past tense situations you'll encounter when speaking French. Once you understand how they work and when to use each one, talking about past events becomes way more natural. Let's break down exactly how to form these tenses and when to use them.

Understanding the French past tense system

French has four main past tenses, but you won't use all of them equally. The passé composé and imparfait dominate spoken French and informal writing. The passé simple appears mostly in literature and formal writing, while the plus-que-parfait (Pluperfect) describes actions that happened before other past actions.

Here's the thing: native French speakers use passé composé and imparfait constantly in daily conversation. The passé simple? You'll see it in novels and historical texts, but almost never hear it spoken. So if you're learning French to actually communicate, focus your energy on passé composé and imparfait first.

Think of passé composé as what happened, and imparfait as what was happening or used to happen.

How to form the passé composé in French

Avoir or être?

Most French verbs use avoir as their auxiliary verb. About 80-85% of verbs fall into this category. You conjugate avoir in the present tense, then add the past participle.

A smaller group of verbs uses être instead. These include:

The classic mnemonic for être verbs is "DR & MRS VANDERTRAMP," where each letter represents a verb that takes être.

First things first: how do we form the past participle?

For regular verbs, the past participle follows predictable patterns based on the infinitive ending:

Irregular verbs have unpredictable past participles you need to memorize. Common ones include:

Conjugating passé composé with avoir

Let's conjugate "parler" (To speak) in passé composé:

The past participle stays the same for all subjects when using avoir, unless there's a preceding direct object (which is an advanced grammar point you can worry about later).

Conjugating passé composé with être

When you use être, the past participle must agree with the subject in gender and number. This means adding -e for feminine, -s for masculine plural, or -es for feminine plural.

Let's conjugate "aller" (To go):

The agreement rule trips up learners at first, but you get used to it with practice.

When to use the passé composé

Use passé composé for:

How to conjugate the imperfect tense

The imparfait (Imperfect tense) is simpler to form than passé composé because it uses just one verb form instead of two parts.

To conjugate any verb in imparfait:

Let's conjugate "parler" (To speak):

This pattern works for almost every French verb. The only irregular verb in imparfait is être:

Pretty cool that there's only one irregular verb to memorize for this tense!

When to use imparfait tense in French

Use imparfait for:

What's the difference between passé composé and passé simple

The passé simple is another past tense in French that describes completed actions, similar to passé composé. The difference? Passé simple appears almost exclusively in written French, particularly literature, historical texts, and formal journalism.

You'll recognize passé simple by its distinctive conjugation endings. For example, "parler" in passé simple:

French speakers don't use passé simple in conversation. If you're reading a novel and see "il parla" instead of "il a parlé," that's passé simple doing the same job as passé composé would in spoken French.

For learners, you need to recognize passé simple when reading, but you won't need to produce it yourself unless you're writing formal literature or academic papers.

Using passé composé and imparfait together

Here's where things get interesting. Native French speakers constantly combine these two tenses in the same sentence or narrative. The imparfait sets the scene, while the passé composé describes what happened.

Example:

"Il faisait nuit" uses imparfait because it describes the ongoing condition (It was nighttime). "Je suis rentré" uses passé composé because coming home was a specific, completed action.

Another example:

"Nous regardions" uses imparfait for the ongoing activity. "Le téléphone a sonné" uses passé composé for the specific interruption.

Think of imparfait as painting the background of your story, while passé composé adds the main events. When telling a story in French, you'd typically use imparfait to describe the setting, weather, emotions, and ongoing situations, then use passé composé for the sequence of events that moved the story forward.

Example narrative:

The imparfait verbs (était, avait) set the mood, while the passé composé verbs (ai entendu, me suis retourné, ai vu) describe what actually happened.

Tips for mastering the past tense in French together with conjugation rules

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FAQs

Acquiring the different past tenses in French this way...

The rules are complicated, but the method of acquisition is simple. Consistently consuming French media and passively listening to these rules applied in real content. As you start out, recall actively when you encounter the examples as well. No need to stress on perfect understanding. Just actively recall the rules for 30% of the examples you encounter.

Where there is a will, there is a way!