Nous avons ouvert la fenêtre car il fait trop chaud.

Question

Six years on from the last question in Q&A (asking why not "faisait") the sentence just came up again in a Kwiz: the English equivalent is common usage but I’d like to know why the French one doesn’t seem to follow the usual concordance of tenses?

Céline Pickard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour Anne,
Tenses in French are not always going to match the ones used in the sentence in French. So, that can make it tricky.
You could use L'Imparfait (faisait) here but both sentences would have a different meaning:
Nous avons ouvert la fenêtre car il faisait trop chaud.
 → it was too hot (at that moment in time) / it's pure narration of a past event
Nous avons ouvert la fenêtre car il fait trop chaud.
 → it's still too hot / it is still true as I am speaking
 
**I've removed the question from 6 years ago as the user had not replied to Cécile.
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !