Quick Question(again!)

cartman444

im doing my french oral on monday and i just want to know the following:

1.How do you know when to use the imperfect tense or the past tense?
like if your saying something about what you did on holidays last summer or what jobs did you do in work, which tense do you use?

2.How do you pronounce Ils Regardent and Nous Sommes?

3.Do you say ''Il y a quelque l'annes'' or just''Il y a quelque annes?

Thanks in advance!!

Piste

1) You use the passé composé when you're talking about things that happened at a definite moment e.g. "he dropped the pen". The imperfect is used when taking about something that happened over a period of time, or something that used to happen. e.g. "Ha was walking down the stairs" or "we used to go to Wexford every Summer"

2)Ils regardent is pronounced the exact same as "il regarde"

3)It'd be "Il y a quelqu'ans" I think, not as sure on this as I am about 1 & 2 so someone else feel free to correct me!



Good luck!

PurpleFistMixer

1) If you're talking about last summer, and you're talking about the weather it'd be "Il faisait chaud/whatever", because the weather was a continuous thing. If you went to a shop, "Je suis allée a la magasin" or whatever, because it was a definite thing. If you said you were very tired or something, "J'etais très fatigué(e)".

2) Ils regardent - Eel reuh-"guard" .. whatever you do don't pronounce the "ent"
Nous sommes - Noo szohm .. don't pronounce the "es" either at the end (unless it's followed by a vowel, ie, "nous sommes allés" would be "noo szohm-zallay"), and the two s sounds blend into each other between the words.
Or something like that...

3) I'd say "Il y a quelle-ques années" or something, année is feminine and plural so you need an s for the "quelle-que" I think... I seem to have forgotten all my french in the two days since my oral.

dip

1) Past tense is for a single completed action like 'I dropped the pen'.
Imperfect is used with was, were or used to, ie something happening on a continuous basis.
So you'd used the imperfect to say it was warm, -il faisait chaud - because more than likely it was warm for more than one spilt second, it was warm throughout/during the holiday.
If you were talking about a job you had last summer, you'd use the imperfect to describe what you did, eg. Je travaillais a la caisse (I used to work at the till)

2) Pronounced the same as 'il regarde" - eel rih-guard DONT pronounce the -ent, for the examiner its on a par with saying 'je suis dix-huit ans'
Nous sommes - Noo szohm. Don't pronounce the s. You only ever pronounce as far as the last vowel.

3) It's 'Il y a quelleques années"

JSK 252

1.The imperfect tense is used for descriptions and habitual actions in the past.
The past tense is used when an action has definitely been done. It is in the deep past.

2. Nous sommes = New summ Ils regardent = eels regard

3. Same as the above person. ( my keyboard cant do damn acutes or accents not to mind cedillas!:p)

Peleus

quelque or quelques is never followed by le/la/l'/les
it would be like saying 'some the years' en anglais.

here's how i thing of l'Imparfait/ Le Passé Composé:

je suis allé means 'i went'
j'allais means 'i was going'
(but not literally)

J'ai eté malade six fois cette année
j'étais malade hier soir. j'avais mal a la gorge