“We we’re driving...” Nous conduisions or Nous étions conduire? Merci!

AnnaB1Kwiziq community member

“We we’re driving...” Nous conduisions or Nous étions conduire? Merci!

Were not we’re 
Asked 5 years ago
CécileKwiziq team memberCorrect answer

It is -

Nous conduisions .

ChrisC1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor Correct answer

Nous étions -- We were.

Nous conduisons. -- We drive / we are driving. 

Nous conduisions. -- We were driving / we used to drive. 

Nous avions conduit -- We had driven / we had been driving. 

Nous avons conduit. -- We drove. 

Grammatically, you never use the infinitive (conduire) after an auxiliary verb (être) in a compound tense. 

Also, the English continuous form (-ing form) does not have a one-to-one correspondence in French. 

-- Chris. 

AnnaB1Kwiziq community member
Merci, Cécile. Why not nous étions conduire?  This is a new level for me. I’ve re-read the related lessons but I’m still missing it. I feel like it’s staring me in the face but I’m not seeing it. Thanks in advance for helping me see my error. 
ChrisC1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

Nous étions conduire doesn't mean anything. It is a literal translation from English which simply has nomparallel in French. 

-- Chris. 

ChrisC1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

Nous étions conduire doesn't mean anything. It is a literal translation from English which simply has nomparallel in French. 

-- Chris. 

AnnaB1Kwiziq community member

Mais no! :-) 

if it means nothing, then why does it show up in Conjugate être in the imperfect tense in French (L'Imparfait)

Merci

AnnaB1Kwiziq community member
By “it” I mean nous étions.  Why, grammatically, is it incorrect to use it in “ we were driving”? Isn’t one use of l’imparfait yo express continuing action in the past?
AnnaB1Kwiziq community member
Thank you SO much.  That’s what I needed!
AnnaB1Kwiziq community member
And also I just realized I was mistaken in using être as the auxiliary.  I was thinking of driving as a coming/going verb. Thank you again. 

“We we’re driving...” Nous conduisions or Nous étions conduire? Merci!

Were not we’re 

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