Year 9 - French
Simultaneous events: perfect and imperfect tenses together
Ongoing past events: imperfect tense
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
In this unit, pupils re-examine être and avoir in the imperfect tense in singular form, and add aller and faire in the imperfect what people used to do. The imperfect is then contrasted with the perfect tense to distinguish between ongoing vs specific events. The verb 'voir' is introduced.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to use the perfect and imperfect tenses together, including within 'est-ce que' structures to describe simultaneous events.
Key Notes
- [r] is pronounced as in 'rue'. It is different to English 'r'.
- Use the perfect tense for one-off past actions and the imperfect for things that used to happen regularly.
- Use the imperfect tense to express the past continuous 'was -ing'.
- Use the perfect + imperfect tenses together with a conjunction to describe what happened when you were doing something.
- Use 'est-ce que' in the imperfect tense with its usual structure to ask about 2 things happening at the same time.
Vocabulary To Learn
- imperfect tense: tense used to describe how things were or used to be in the past, or to say what was happening
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- [r] is the same as the English 'r' sound.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain what you can now say or understand in this lesson.
[r] is pronounced as in 'rue'. It is different to English 'r'. Use the perfect tense for one-off past actions and the imperfect for things that used to happen regularly.
2. Define this key language word and use it in context. 'imperfect tense'
tense used to describe how things were or used to be in the past, or to say what was happening. Say or write it in a short sentence so you use the word actively.
3. Correct this common language-learning mistake.
Mistake: [r] is the same as the English 'r' sound. Correction: [r] in French is a raspier sound, produced in the back of the throat, which you can practise.
More Lessons In This Unit
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