176 - How to Conjugate “Aller” (To Go) in French (Imperfect Tense)

In this episode, I’ll break down the imperfect tense conjugation of ‘faire’ (to do/make).

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Transcript

Hello everyone! Bonjour tout le monde. 💛

Welcome back to the French Made Easy podcast. This is episode 176 — numéro 176 !

Today, we’re continuing our conjugation series in the imperfect tense, or l’imparfait, in French. And this time, we’re learning how to conjugate another super useful verb: “aller” — which means to go.

Now, If you want a refresher on the verb “aller”, I covered the present tense of “aller” back in episode 23, and the future tense in episode 105. So feel free to listen to those one out after this lesson.

As always, if you’re new to the podcast — welcome! Make sure you’ve got your lesson’s cheat sheet ready so you can follow along as you listen And after this lesson, you can practice what you’ve learned using the exercises inside the French Made Easy Exercise Library. You’ll find all the links in the episode notes — it’s free!

Alright, Just a quick reminder before we start: the imperfect tense, or l’imparfait, is used to talk about past habits, ongoing actions, or situations in the past.

Couple of examples:

• Quand j’étais petite, je lisais tous les soirs. (When I was little, I used to read every evening.)
• Il faisait très chaud l’été dernier. (It was very warm last summer).

Now let’s see “aller” in the imperfect tense.

Please repeat after me:

• j’allais (I was going / I used to go)
• tu allais (you were going / you used to go)
• il / elle allait (he / she was going)
• on allait (we were going)
• nous allions (we were going)
• vous alliez (you were going)
• ils / elles allaient (they were going)

Now, let’s see some example sentences:

• À l’époque, j’allais rarement à la gym. (Back then, I rarely went to the gym.)
• Quand tu étais petite, tu allais souvent chez le docteur. (When you were little, you often went to the doctor.)
• Quand il habitait à Paris, il allait au travail en métro. (When he lived in Paris, he used to go to work by metro.)
• On allait toujours chez mes grands-parents le dimanche. (We always used to go to my grandparents’ on Sundays.)
• Chaque été, nous allions en Bretagne. (Every summer, we went to Brittany.)
• Elles allaient toujours au même café après leur cours d’anglais. (They always went to the same café after their English class.)
• Vous alliez à Marseille en avion ou en train ? (Did you used to go to Marseille by plane or by train?)

Script Disabled 

Quick Recap:

• j’allais
• tu allais
• il / elle allait
• on allait
• nous allions
• vous alliez
• ils / elles allaient

Et voilà ! That wraps up our lesson on how to conjugate “aller” in the imperfect tense.

Make sure you download the cheat sheet to review today’s conjugation, and head over to the Exercise Library to get some extra practice. The exercises really help everything stick — so don’t skip them!

Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll chat with you next week.

À bientôt — bye! 🖤