im sure this has been asked already but I can't get my head around why imperfect is used for "les festivités commençaient VERS vingt heures" and then past tense is used for "VERS vingt-trois heures trente, tout le monde s'est dirigé vers le terrain de foot" when both sentences says towards a time ???
imperfect or perfect tense ?
- « Back to Q&A Forum
- « Previous questionNext question »
Hi James,
"Yesterday, like every year, I went to see the fireworks. The festivities started around 8pm, with the New Year's Eve meal. My sister and I met our friends there and we had a lot of fun! Then around half past eleven, everyone headed for the football [US: soccer] field to be able to admire the fireworks."
1) The context in the first sentence is describing a past / background situation which happens regularly. Imparfait.
2) The context of the following sentence describes meeting friends etc but then the group headed off to do something else -- the meeting friends could be thought of as being curtailed / interrupted by the action of heading off to see the fireworks.
Perfect tense
Does this help?
Jim
Thank you for your response, that sheds some light on it for sure !
The first sentence is in passé composé. I put the second sentence into passé composé. From a native French speaker - "Les festivités ont commencé vers huit heures" in this context.
Wouldn't beat myself up over using passé composé here.
Don't have an account yet? Join today
Find your French level for FREE
Test your French to the CEFR standard
Find your French level