#<Passé composé vs. Imparfait>

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knotty stoneBOT
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<Passé composé vs. Imparfait>

neat pulsar
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While the imparfait is for incomplete actions, it's also for actions in the past that were habitual (recurring). For example, if you were to talk about your childhood:

Back then/At the time, I played with my friends all the time.
You'd use the imparfait:
À l'époque, je jouais tout le temps avec mes amis.

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An example for an incomplete action might be, as well as one that talks about two simultaneous events:

I was eating when he rang the bell.
J'étais en train de manger quand il a sonné la cloche.

wraith wolf
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Complete vs. incomplete is one aspect of the difference between the passé composé and the imparfait

We call these "tenses" but in reality they're verbal forms that englobe two different concepts: tense and aspect

The tense for both of these is simply "past". They deal with actions that happened before the present time.

But where they differ is aspect. For passé composé we're dealing with "perfective aspect" - it deals with an event in the past with clear boundaries (either a clear start and end, or something that happened instantaneously). Time does not "flow" in this case, something that happened in the passé composé may as well have happened in an instant.

For the imparfait, we're dealing with "imperfective aspect". Imperfective aspect deals with things that happen over a period of time. There is no clear start or end and the tense can be used to describe background information or habits in the past.

Often times the two tenses are used together. Imperfect give us background on what was happening in a situation (music was playing, the weather was pleasant, rain was falling, I was showering). We then use the passé composé to describe an action or actions that interrupt this background (I woke up, he burnt the toast, she fell down, we rang the doorbell).