French Made Easy
Bite-sized and easy-to-follow French lessons for beginners. Join Mathilde as she teaches you the basics you need to know to kickstart your French learning journey, and ultimately speak French clearly and confidently. Each episode covers topics related to French grammar, French pronunciation, and French vocabulary. At the end of each episode, you can download the lesson's exercises – so you can start practicing what you've learned right away. Head to https://mathildekien.com/subscribe-library to subscribe to the free FME (French Made Easy) Exercise Library. 🗝
French Made Easy
163 - How to Conjugate “Avoir” (To Have) in French (Imperfect Tense)
In this episode, I’ll break down the imperfect tense conjugation of ‘avoir’ (to have).
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Hello everyone! Bonjour tout le monde. 💛 Welcome back to the French Made Easy podcast. This is episode 163, numéro 163!
Today, we're continuing with our conjugation series, focusing on the verb "avoir" (to have). We've previously covered "avoir" in the present and future tenses in episodes 16 and 102, and today, we’ll learn how to conjugate "avoir" in the imperfect tense (l’imparfait).
I’ve talked briefly about what the imperfect is used for in French in last week’s episode, so make sure you listen to episode 162 if you need a little refresher.
If you're new here, make sure you have your lesson's cheat sheet ready, so you can follow along with the spelling of the words as you listen. And don’t forget, after this episode, you can practice what you've learned by downloading exercises from the French Made Easy Exercise Library. All the links you need are in the episode notes. It’s free!
Let's see the conjugation of "avoir" in the imperfect tense:
Please repeat after me:
- j'avais (I had)
- tu avais (you had)
- il / elle avait (he / she had)
- on avait (we had)
- nous avions (we had)
- vous aviez (you had)
- ils / elles avaient (they had)
Here are a few sentences to practice:
- Je n'avais pas de téléphone portable à l'époque. (I didn't have a cell phone back then.)
- Est-ce que tu avais de bonnes notes à l'école ? (Did you have good grades at school?)
- Il/Elle avait l'habitude de se lever tôt le matin pour courir. (He/She used to get up early in the morning to run.)
- On avait deux chats et un chien. (We had two cats and a dog.)
- Nous avions un petit chalet à la montagne. (We had a small cabin in the mountains.)
- Est-ce que vous aviez un animal de compagnie quand vous étiez petits ? (Did you have a pet when you were little?)
- Ils/elles avaient une petite boutique au coin de la rue. (They had a small shop at the corner of the street.)
Quick recap, the conjugation of "avoir" in the imperfect tense is:
- j'avais (I had)
- tu avais (you had)
- il / elle avait (he / she had)
- on avait (we had)
- nous avions (we had)
- vous aviez (you had)
- ils / elles avaient (they had)
Et voilà! That wraps up our lesson on the imperfect tense of "avoir"! Now, make sure you go practice with the exercises available in the Exercises Library. Thanks for listening. I’ll chat with you next week. À bientôt. Bye.