Sorting game
French imparfait meaning: habit or description in one memory?
Sort ten contextualised French imparfait sentences into repeated habits and scene descriptions. Use the stated frequency cues and physical details, not the ending alone.
- A2
- 10 words to sort
- 2 boxes
- Tap to play
- Learn this in the A2 notebook →
In short
The imparfait ending does not by itself tell you whether a sentence expresses a habit or a description. A phrase such as chaque mercredi explicitly repeats an action. La cour était grande gives a feature of the setting. Use the sentence’s meaning and supplied context.
Yellow the idea to rememberBlue French to learn
Mila remembers one childhood home where she lived throughout the period described. Some sentences tell you what happened repeatedly there. Others give the house’s stable layout, materials or colours. Sort by the main information each supplied sentence contributes.
Tap a word, then the box it belongs in.
Each and every repeat the occasion
Chaque mercredi and tous les matins set up repeated points in time. D’habitude introduces what usually happened. Après chaque partie links rangement to each recurring game. In these examples, the action has several stated occasions, which supplies a clear habit reading.
Chaque mercredi, nous jouions dans cette grande cour.
Every Wednesday, we played in that large courtyard.
A physical property fills in the remembered picture
Grande et carrée describes the courtyard; en bois describes the bench’s material; au fond du jardin places the hut. The task treats these as descriptions because their main role is to establish the setting. They do not say that a new building, bench or hut appeared on each occasion.
La cour était grande et le banc était en bois.
The courtyard was large and the bench was wooden.
A memory can combine both kinds of information in one sentence: Tous les matins, nous jouions dans la cour, qui était grande et carrée. The first clause supplies a habit and the second adds description. The sorting activity keeps them separate so you can identify the contribution of each clause.
When the distinction is less clear in a real text, describe what the clause tells you rather than forcing every imparfait into one exclusive box. The explicit cues in this exercise make its intended classifications clear.