I was messing around writing sentences about my childhood in French last Thursday, trying to tell a story. You know, simple stuff like “When I was little, I played soccer every day.” Felt like hitting a wall – just couldn’t make the past tense words sound right. Looked like random letters slapped together.
Searched online for like 20 minutes straight, clicking anything saying “French past tense”. Most guides sounded like dusty textbooks, way too many grammar words I forgot years ago. Got frustrating real fast.
The “Aha!” Moment & My Go-To Trick
Finally stumbled on something that clicked: someone just called it the “imparfait” past tense. Okay, name doesn’t matter much. The important bit they shared? Nearly every single verb follows the SAME pattern. Game changer.
Here’s exactly what I did:
- Grabbed my notebook – the one with coffee stains.
- Wrote down the present tense “nous” form for one regular verb: “parler” (to talk). For “nous” it’s “nous parlons”.
- Chopped off the “-ons” ending from “parlons”. Left me with just “parl-“.
- Plugged in one of these endings directly onto “parl-“:
- -ais
- -ais
- -ait
- -ions
- -iez
- -aient
Bam! “Je parlais” (I was talking/I used to talk). “Ils parlaient” (They were talking/They used to talk). Felt like magic. Noticed those endings looked kinda familiar – similar to other tenses I half-remembered.
Testing It Out Like Crazy
Practiced immediately. Wrote down boring things from my day:
- “I was eating toast” became “Je mangeais du pain.” (“nous mangeons” → cut “-ons” = “mange-” + “-ais”)
- “We were waiting” became “Nous attendions.” (“nous attendons” → cut “-ons” = “attend-” + “-ions”)
- Even tried “She was finishing” – “Elle finissait.” (“nous finissons” → cut “-ons” = “finiss-” + “-ait”). Yep, “finiss-” looks weird with the extra letters, but it WORKED.
Felt way smoother. Spent maybe 30 minutes just churning out nonsense sentences like “The cats were sleeping” (“Les chats dormaient”) and “You guys were laughing” (“Vous riiez”). Got used to those endings rolling off my fingers.
The One Weird Verb That Messed It Up
Then I hit “être” (to be). Total buzzkill. “Nous sommes” – chop off “-ons”? Got “somm-“. Plugged in “-ais” – “Je sommais”. Sounded like nonsense. Knew that wasn’t right.
Quick cheat: apparently “être” just does its own thing: “j’étais, tu étais, il/elle était, nous étions, vous étiez, ils/elles étaient”. Just memorized it raw. Wrote it 10 times. Annoying, but only one big exception? Fine, I’ll take it.
My messy notebook now has “ÊTRE = SPECIAL” circled three times.
Why This Actually Stuck
Using the “nous” form like a springboard made it brain-dead simple. No need to recall fancy verb groups. Just find “nous” present, chop the ends off, slap the endings on. Felt way less stupid scribbling verb pieces in my book. Now, at least when I wanna waffle on about “back in my day”, I have one decent tool to do it in French. Still sounds rough, but hey, it works.
