lightsilvertear

[waxen epoch]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

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.

[grave talon]

neither is "more" correct, they're just different tenses.
https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/passe-compose-vs-imparfait/

[hard urchin]

I mean, they're both right; they just mean different things. The first makes me think that you've got interesting courses just on that whereas the second makes me think that you've got interesting courses every day

[grave talon]

the first one to me is closer to like, "have you ever"

really will depend on context tho

[hard urchin]

« J'ai eu un cours intéressant aujourd'hui. Il y avait un séminaire sur la santé environnementale, présenté par le célèbre professeur Martens.  »
=> One-off incident

« J'avais un cours intéressant aujourd'hui. Le professeur nous a posé une question intéressante sur la santé. »
=> Has happened numerous times in the past

That's how I understood it

[hard urchin]

Yeah

[grave talon]

j'avais sounds.. odd there to me

[hard urchin]

Because the passé composé describes one-off things, it makes things… special

[grave talon]

maybe lacking context to justify it

it sort of sounds like the class mightve been cancelled or something

[hard urchin]

Yeah establishing the context was kinda hard but I still got the idea passé composé = special one-off vs imparfait = something more habitual

[grave talon]

yeah but your sentence doesnt imply habitual at all

[hard urchin]

I don't know how to explain it

let me try again

« J'avais un cours intéressant avec Professeur Adams mais puisqu'il a décidé de prendre sa retraite l'année prochaine, je suivrais plus son cours. »

[grave talon]

passé composé also doesnt have to be one-off but yeah

that works better

[hard urchin]

Perhaps 'enumerable'? Like you can count on your fingers how many times it has happened (i.e. it's not happened enough to warrant it being a habitual thing)

[grave talon]

I mean so long as it's not something regular and habitual
imparfait can be less often than passé composé if it's, say, habitual every year or so

imparfait can be infrequent enough to be countable, passé composé can be often enough to be uncountable, it's more just a matter if it's roughly regular intervals or not

along with other things about the context

[lost flume]

To me 2) is about the classes you used to have

While 1) is about what you had just earlier today

Or it can be avoir as in get
Like you got (= were given) interesting classes to follow

Tu avais des cours intéressants aujourd'hui is an imparfait for context