--- title: "Passé composé or imparfait: a decision, not a rule" description: "The trigger-word lists stop helping the moment you write a real paragraph. What passe compose and imparfait each do, and how markers spot a guess." canonical: https://francaisprep.com/blog/passe-compose-vs-imparfait last-updated: 2026-05-26 --- Short answer The trigger-word lists stop helping the moment you write a real paragraph. What passe compose and imparfait each do, and how markers spot a guess. ![Adèle Sason](/_next/image?url=%2Fadele.png&w=96&q=75) Adèle Sason Founder, Français Prep ![Adèle, the native French teacher who runs Français Prep](/_next/image?url=%2Fadele.png&w=3840&q=75) Not sure which of this you actually need? A 15-minute video call works out which of your four abilities is furthest from the level your application needs. It is free, and some candidates leave with a plan and no purchase. Adèle Sason · Native French teacher - every class, every correction [Book the free call](/book) Every course teaches this the same way. Imparfait for description, habit and background; passé composé for completed actions. Then you write a real paragraph and the rule stops helping, because half the sentences could honestly take either one, and the textbook never said what to do about that. To check any verb in every tense, use our [full conjugation tables](/french-conjugation), built for the 60-odd verbs that come up most in TCF and TEF Canada answers. The reason is that the rule is describing an effect rather than a cause. The tenses are not two boxes that facts fall into. They are two camera angles on the same event, and French makes you choose one every time you write a past-tense sentence. Once you see it that way, the cases that felt arbitrary stop being arbitrary. ## What each tense actually does Passé composé puts a boundary on the event. It says: this happened, it finished, and the story can now move on. Imparfait removes the boundary. It says: this was going on, and I am not telling you when it started or stopped, because that is not the point. That is why the same action can take either tense. _Il pleuvait_ and _il a plu_ are both correct French about the same rain. The first makes the rain the setting for something else. The second makes the rain the event. Nothing about the weather decided that. You did. This is the single most useful thing to internalise, because it turns an impossible memory task into a question you can actually answer while writing: am I setting a scene, or am I moving the story forward? ## Where the trigger words let you down You were probably given a list. _Toujours_, _souvent_, _chaque jour_ take imparfait. _Soudain_, _tout à coup_, _hier_ take passé composé. The list is a reasonable starting point and it is not a rule, and examiners see the difference immediately. _Chaque jour, il a pris le même train pendant trente ans_ is correct. The repetition is real, the marker word is right there, and the tense is passé composé, because the whole thirty years is being presented as one closed block. A candidate following the list would have written _prenait_ and produced a different, also correct, sentence with a different meaning. The lists fail because they are trying to predict your intention from your vocabulary. Nothing can do that. ## The three patterns worth actually knowing **Interruption.** A continuing situation in imparfait, cut across by an event in passé composé. _Je dormais quand le téléphone a sonné._ This is the pattern exam prompts invite most often, because narrative openings usually hand you a scene and expect you to disturb it. **Sequence.** Several closed events, one after another, all in passé composé. _Il est entré, a posé son sac, a ouvert la fenêtre._ Slipping into imparfait here is the most common way a script loses its forward motion and starts to feel static. **Change of state.** Verbs like _savoir_, _vouloir_, _pouvoir_ and _connaître_ shift meaning with the tense. _Je savais_ is I knew, as a background fact. _J'ai su_ is I found out, at a moment. This is not an exception to the boundary idea. It is the boundary idea applied to a verb whose meaning happens to sit on the boundary. ## What this costs you in the exam Section A of the [TEF Canada expression écrite](/tef-canada/expression-ecrite) hands you the opening of a factual text and asks you to continue it. It is, in practice, a tense-consistency test wearing a narrative costume. The text you are given has already chosen its camera angle, and your continuation has to keep it. Markers do not deduct once per wrong verb. What they see is whether a script holds a tense system together across a whole text, and that is very different from getting individual verbs right in isolated exercises. A candidate who is correct sentence by sentence but drifts between angles paragraph by paragraph reads as someone who has learned the forms and not the choice. The same thing shows up in speaking, faster and more visibly. In the point-of-view task on the [TCF Canada expression orale](/tcf-canada/expression-orale), the candidates who sound in control are the ones who set a scene in imparfait and then move through it in passé composé, without stopping to think about which is which. ## How to practise it so it sticks Stop doing gap-fill exercises. They give you the answer by giving you the context, which is precisely the part you have to supply yourself in the exam. What works better is writing the same short paragraph twice, once with the event in the foreground and once in the background, and seeing what changes. Then have it read. This is the awkward part of the honest answer: tense drift is invisible to the person who wrote it, because to you the text reads exactly as you intended. It takes about three marked texts before most candidates can see their own pattern, and about ten before it stops happening. That is the argument for [marked writing](/pricing) rather than more input. If you want to know whether this is the ability holding your file back at all, run your last practice result through the [score converter](/tools/score-converter) first. If your writing is already at your target band, the honest advice is to spend the time on whichever section is not. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is the real difference between passé composé and imparfait? Passé composé puts a boundary on the event: it happened, it finished, the story moves on. Imparfait removes the boundary: it was going on, and when it started or stopped is not the point. They are two camera angles on the same past, not two boxes that facts fall into. ### Can the same sentence take either tense? Often, yes, and both can be correct French about the same facts. Il pleuvait makes the rain the setting for something else; il a plu makes the rain the event. Nothing about the weather decides which one you use. You do, by choosing what the sentence is about. ### Do trigger words like toujours and soudain decide the tense? No, and relying on them is where candidates lose marks. Chaque jour, il a pris le même train pendant trente ans is correct: the marker word suggests imparfait but the thirty years is presented as one closed block. The lists try to predict your intention from your vocabulary, and nothing can do that. ### Which patterns are worth knowing for the exam? Three carry most of the work: interruption, where a situation in the imparfait is cut across by an event in the passé composé; background plus event, where the imparfait sets the scene a passé composé action happens in; and repetition presented as a single closed period, which takes the passé composé despite feeling habitual. ### Does this matter for speaking as well as writing? Yes, and it is more exposed there. In the TCF Canada expression orale and the TEF Canada speaking sections you narrate under time pressure with no chance to revise, so the tense choice has to be a reflex rather than a decision. Examiners hear inconsistent past narration quickly. 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You will leave knowing which of your four abilities is furthest from the level you need, and whether the exam date you have in mind leaves enough weeks. No sales pitch. [Book a 15-minute video call](/book) ## Related posts - [ ![](/home/people/peep-sitting-6.svg) Comparison ### TCF vs TEF Canada skill by skill: listening to speaking Both exams convert to the same NCLC, so the real differences sit inside each skill. Listening, reading, writing and speaking compared, one at a time. 26 July 2026 · 8 min read ](/blog/which-is-easier-tcf-or-tef-canada) - [ ![](/home/people/peep-standing-17.svg) Comparison ### TCF Canada vs DELF: which one does immigration want? The DELF is a lifetime diploma, but IRCC reads the TEF Canada or TCF Canada instead. Which one your file needs, and when the DELF is still the right exam. 27 June 2026 · 8 min read ](/blog/tcf-canada-vs-delf) - [ ![](/home/people/peep-standing-26.svg) Comparison ### TEF Canada vs TEFAQ: can one result cover both routes? TEF Canada and the TEFAQ are one test aimed at two authorities. What separates them, and whether a single sitting can serve Express Entry and Quebec. 23 June 2026 · 8 min read ](/blog/tef-canada-vs-tefaq) - [ ![](/home/people/peep-standing-22.svg) Comparison ### TEF vs IELTS for Express Entry: which earns more CRS points TEF vs IELTS is usually not a choice: French adds up to 50 CRS points on top of your English, not instead of it. How the additional-points rule works. 1 June 2026 · 9 min read ](/blog/tef-canada-vs-ielts) [ Previous Le subjonctif: the trigger list, and what a marker sees ](/blog/le-subjonctif)[ Next NCLC 5 on the TCF Canada: what it is worth, and to whom ](/blog/nclc-5-tcf-canada) Where these facts come from Neither board publishes a comparison with the other, so the formats below are each board's own and the conversion that makes them comparable is IRCC's. - [France Éducation International: TCF Canada](https://www.france-education-international.fr/test/tcf-canada) - [Le français des affaires: TEF Canada](https://www.lefrancaisdesaffaires.fr/candidat/test-evaluation-francais/tef-canada/presentation/) - [IRCC: Express Entry language test results and NCLC equivalencies](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/language-test.html) Exam boards reissue formats, fees and conversion tables without announcing it. Where a number here matters to a decision that costs money, check it against the source above rather than trusting any preparation site, including this one. --- For agents: site index https://francaisprep.com/llms.txt, developer access https://francaisprep.com/developers, and TCF or TEF to NCLC conversion over a plain GET at https://api.francaisprep.com/v1/score/convert?exam=tcf_canada&listening=512&reading=470&writing=12&speaking=11 (exam is tcf_canada or tef_canada).