In French how do you know which verbs take etre or avoir in the imperfect tense?

Question

and how do you form them? I don't understand it.

say you wanted to use "aller" would it be
J'allais, J'allais, J'allait and so on? :S

Do you always have to have a J' ?

Answer 1

Imperfect is not like the Passé Composé which requires an auxiliary verb (être or avoir) then the infinitive. The imperfect tense is created by taking the 'nous' form of the verb in present, dropping the '~ons' ending and adding the imperfect ending that corresponds with the subject.



For example:



I ate the apple.

Passé Composé: J'ai mangé la pomme. Manger takes the auxiliary 'avoir' and the past participle 'mangé'.



I was eating the apple.

Imperfect: Je mangeais la pomme. An auxiliary verb is not needed to establish the tense as it is in the Passé Composé form.



The 'nous' form of 'manger' is 'mangeons'. (the e is needed to soften the g, because it is followed by an o). To form the imperfect you drop '~ons', leaving 'mange~' then the ending for 'je' (ais) is added, making "mangeais". This means "was eating". No auxiliary verb needed.





You can, though, form être and avoir in the imperfect tense to say "was" or "did have (was having)" As in present tense, however, être is a special case verb and is not conjugated the way others are. The endings are the same, but the root, or radical, is not formed by taking the present tense 'nous' form. It is 'ét~' for être.



Example:

"Il était triste" "He was sad" The same as other cases, just with a different root.



Allais, Allais, Allait, Allions... as you mentioned are correct conjugations of Aller in the imperfect tense.



The "J' " means "Je" and is employed when "Je" is followed by a vowel (or silent 'h'); as in "J'allais" or "J'étais". This for the flow of speech: saying "J'étais" is much easier than "Je étais". (compare with "the" pronounced as "Thee" when followed by a vowel in English) This is also used for other words like "De", "Que", "Le", "La" and other words that end in vowels.

Answer 2

Imperfect capacity unfinished (perfect surely capacity finished). of direction, if the verb is in a diverse stressful, it is going to conjugated in yet otherwise, i'm not particular what you predicted! try describing a tale making use of both the stretch action (with both palms) or the end action (hitting your palm with the aspect of the different rapidly hand). The stretching will be imparfait. It describes situations, not movements or one-time activities.

Answer 3

in the imperfect tense you don't need to use etre or avoir, it doesn't matter then. only if you're using a past tense does it matter.



for aller:

j'allais, tu allais, il/elle allait, nous allons, vous allez, ils/elles allaient.

for etre: j'etais, tu etais, il/elle etait, nous etions, vous etiez, ils/elles etaient (with accent aigu on all of the first 'e's)



in passe compose, for example, thats when you use etre or avoir. aller takes etre and etre takes avoir. here's the example:

for aller: je suis alle(e), tu es alle, il/elle est alle(e), nous sommes alle(e)s, vous etes alle(e)(s) (if you're using vous to represent a group of people/more than one person), ils/elles sont alle(e)s. (accent aigu over all of the first 'e's)

for etre: j'ai ete, tu as ete, il/elle a ete, nous avons ete, vous avez ete, ils ont ete (accent aigu over the first and last 'e's)

Answer 4

I don't really understand your question, but if you wanted to say "I go" it would be Je vais.



You only use J' if the word begins in a vowel, like J'aime (aimer) or J'ai (Avoir)