Passé composé vs imparfait
Summary
Use the passé composé for completed, time-bounded past events that move a story forward, and the imparfait for background description, ongoing situations and repeated habits with no clear endpoint.
Explanation
French has two everyday past tenses, and the choice between them is about aspect — how you view the action — not about how long ago it happened. The passé composé presents an action as a single, finished event with clear limits: j'ai mangé, il est parti, nous avons visité Rome. It answers "what happened?" and pushes the timeline forward, one completed step after another.
The imparfait sets the scene in the background. It describes states, feelings and conditions (il faisait beau, j'étais fatigué), actions in progress (je lisais quand…), and repeated or habitual behaviour (nous allions souvent à la mer, chaque été je travaillais). It answers "what was going on?" or "what used to happen?", with no built-in endpoint.
The two tenses constantly work together, and the interruption pattern is the clearest illustration: the imparfait paints the ongoing situation and the passé composé drops in the event that breaks it. Je dormais (background, imparfait) quand le téléphone a sonné (sudden event, passé composé). The longer, framing action is imparfait; the brief, punctual action is passé composé.
Time markers point you in one direction. Soudain, hier, un jour, deux fois, à huit heures, lundi dernier signal a bounded event and favour the passé composé. Souvent, toujours, d'habitude, tous les jours, le samedi, pendant que, autrefois signal repetition or an ongoing frame and favour the imparfait. The same verb can take either tense: j'ai eu peur means "I got scared" (a reaction at one moment), while j'avais peur means "I was afraid" (an ongoing state).
Decision rule: ask whether the verb advances the story as a completed, countable event (→ passé composé) or paints the backdrop through description, repetition, or an action in progress (→ imparfait). If you can naturally add "and then…", it is usually passé composé; if you can naturally add "used to" or "was -ing", it is usually imparfait.
Examples
Hier, j'ai visité le musée. — Yesterday, I visited the museum. (Passé composé: a single completed event with a time marker (hier).)
Quand j'étais enfant, je jouais souvent au parc. — When I was a child, I often used to play in the park. (Imparfait: a past state plus a repeated habit (souvent).)
Je lisais quand le téléphone a sonné. — I was reading when the phone rang. (Interruption pattern: imparfait background + passé composé event.)
Il faisait nuit et il pleuvait ; soudain, une voiture s'est arrêtée. — It was dark and raining; suddenly, a car stopped. (Imparfait sets the scene; passé composé (soudain) brings the event.)
L'été dernier, nous sommes allés trois fois à la plage. — Last summer, we went to the beach three times. (Passé composé: countable, bounded events (trois fois), not a vague habit.)
Avant, j'avais peur de l'eau, mais ce jour-là j'ai eu le courage de plonger. — I used to be afraid of water, but that day I had the courage to dive in. (Same idea, two aspects: j'avais peur (ongoing state) vs j'ai eu (a reaction at one moment).)
Common mistakes
Quand je suis entré, elle a lu un livre.
Quand je suis entré, elle lisait un livre.
In the interruption pattern, the background action in progress takes the imparfait and the event that cuts in takes the passé composé. "She was reading" (an ongoing scene) is « elle lisait », not « elle a lu ». Using the passé composé here (« elle a lu un livre ») wrongly says she read a whole book at the moment you entered, turning the backdrop into a completed event.
Prerequisites
Related rules
past-tenseaspectconfusables