French language Q&A Forum

Can you explain how to decide whether to use imparfait or le passé composé for être? If I understand it correctly, imparfait is for past events of some duration or past states of existence while le passé composé is for bounded one-off past events.

Above is this example:

L'année dernière, j'ai été vraiment malade.

But if one was sick for most of the year, or even for some months, wouldn't it be:

L'année dernière, j'étais vraiment malade.

So, am I right in thinking the example sentence means something like "I had an episode of grave illness last year"?

Similarly, there is this example above:

Avez-vous été marié?

But being married is, except in extreme cases where there is a divorce immediately after the marriage, being married is an event of some duration.

So, why wouldn't it be:

Étiez-vous marié?

Unless the question is, simply, "have you ever had a marriage ceremony" (which would be a bounded event rather than a state of existence of some duration). But people don't really ask that.

Thanks for any clarification you can provide.

Why Lève-toi and not lèves-toi.  All others follow the norm i.e. Levez-toi or Levons-toi.  es is the correct ending for tu.