#vision111
1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)
Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.
Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.
Conditional is for saying things like
'I would', 'I could', etc...
Imperfect is for saying you 'used to' do something or is just generally used for repeated actions in the past
Essentially a more advanced way of speaking in the past tense
So if I said j’allais au cinéma would that mean that I go to the cinema often
Or that it’s frequent
Not I’m every case though
passé composé is for what is an event at a specific point in time
imparfait is for states, elongated actions, or habits
anything that can't be described as a single point on the timeline
That's a better explanation thanks
it's not just for habits
States?
for instance you could say
"j'allais au cinéma quand je suis tombé"
in that case you just went to the theater, but while you were doing it, you fell.
And because something happened during that action, it has to use imperfect because it can't be a single point in time
for instance
j'étais malade => I was sick
il n'avait pas envie => He didn't feel like it
they're not actions, they're just describing the state of something/someone at one point
la semaine dernière, j'étais à New York => Last week, I was in New York
la semaine dernière, j'ai été à New York => Last week, I went to New York
So this tells us that it’s a frequent action?
not frequent, just an continued state. During last week, that's where I was.