The imperfect is one of the French language’s two main past tenses. In comparison to the passe compose, the imperfect is used to describe continuous past actions.
We use the imperfect tense for many situations such as:
Recurrent actions (I used to play the violin)
Describing feelings (I was a happy child)
Describing age and time (I was 12 years old)
General descriptions in the past (it was cold)
Ongoing actions that are interrupted by another (I was eating when she screamed)
To conjugate a verb in the imperfect tense you must do a few things.
je -ais
tu -ais
il/elle -ait
nous -ions
vous -iez
ils/elles -aient
There is one irregular with the imperfect tense and that is être.
It goes like this.
je -étais
tu -étais
il/elle -était
nous -étions
vous -étaient