imperfect tense

Question

I am in Canada trying to get my french levels for work and they do not teach or use the french imperfect tense here. How do I skip these types of questions without it impacting my score? Do I simply skip? Will the program keep recommending these areas to study and keep adding them to my tests?

Accepted Answer

Hi Kelly,
As previously said, the Passé Simple is a narrative tense used in written form, mainly in literature. Its equivalent in spoken form is the Passé Composé.
This has been the case since the beginning of the 19th Century and you will not hear anyone using the Passé Simple in modern spontaneous French. It can still be used by orators for effect to give a literary colour to their language but can sound very archaic and pedantic. 
If you intend to read French Literature you will need to study the Passé Simple although many modern authors will use the Imparfait and Passé Composé for their narrative particularly in the case of the 'New Novel'.  You may encounter it in the Press too.
Hope this helps!

Answer

You can select questions for a test and put them in a notebook. The automatically generated questions don't provide for skipping of certain questions. And if you consistently skip some questions it will definitely impact your score.

However, there's nothing keeping you from learning "proper" French instead of a local variant. You will certainly be understood. I have never heard the imperfect not being used at all in Canadian French. Maybe that is a very local variant you are exposed to?

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Answer

Ah! I guess I was doing to many excercises last night. I meant to write Passé Simple. This is the tense we are not using at all and I don't have to learn for my Comprehension, Grammaire and especially oral. They are not even covering this tense and I have so much to memorize, understand and do--that I don't want to memorize for now what I don't absolutely need to.
How do I do I skip passé simple questions without it impacting my progress? I want to progress to the C level but C level is starting off will many passé simple questions :(

Answer

Bonsoir Kelly,
Chris gave you a good response relative to skipping questions and scoring and yes, the C1 level has a lot of questions concerning le passé simple.  As I am sure you are aware, this tense is predominately a literary tense; however, it is use at times in very formal speech.  To that end, I would suggest that if possible, stay with the C1 questions even with le passé simple.  I am currently studying the C1 kwizes myself and it appears that the questions about this tense seem to have become less numerous in the kwizes.

Answer

Thank you Ron. I may just have to learn those tenses as I am very self competitive and it’s bothering me :)

Answer

Bonjour,
I certainly can relate to your self-competitive nature you mentioned; and for the most part, learning anything, to me, should be a fun activity done for the sake of learning.  We have all been trained to some level of competition in order to succeed ; however, there are areas where the competitive nature gets in our own way and to me, learning is one of those.
Best wishes and good luck on your Canadian French levels.

Answer

Thank you