tenir at A2 — the past tenses
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Put « tenir » into the past — the big A2 step.
The past — passé composé & imparfait
At A2 you move « tenir » into the past — and French gives you two past tenses where English often uses one. This trips up every learner, so let’s be very concrete: the passé composé is for what happened (one completed event: « hier, j’ai… »), the imparfait is for how things were (background, habit, description: « quand j’étais petit, je …ais »).
Think of a film: the imparfait is the scenery and the mood; the passé composé is what the actors do. Every French story you ever tell will weave these two together — the step-by-step method below shows you how each one is built for this verb, then you practise both.
🔑 Key forms at this level
Passé composé
Imparfait
💡 Focus at this level: Past
👨🏫 How the past tenses work — step by step
Passé composé = avoir + the participle tenu: « j’ai tenu », « nous avons tenu ». One auxiliary, one participle — that’s the whole tense.
Imparfait recipe: take nous tenons, drop -ons → stem ten-, add the endings.
⚠️ Classic mistake: passé composé = one completed event (hier, j’ai…) ; imparfait = background, habit, description (avant, je …ais). Movie trick: imparfait sets the scene, passé composé is the action.
🧠 Memory hook: one story a day: tell yesterday in 3 sentences — 2 passé composé + 1 imparfait, using « tenir » at least once.
🗣️ Pronunciation — listen & repeat (Passé composé)
Tap 🔊 to hear each form in a native voice, then say it aloud — most French verb endings are silent, so « tenir » forms often sound alike.
🔊 Example sentences
✍️ Practice
j’___ (passé composé)
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ai tenu
tu ___ (passé composé)
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as tenu
nous ___ (passé composé)
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avons tenu
je ___ (imparfait)
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tenais
tu ___ (imparfait)
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tenais
nous ___ (imparfait)
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tenions
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🎮 Conjugation quiz match the person to the form
🎮 Practise this with games
🧩 Sentence builder put the words in the right order