Question 1

How do we form the imparfait for être, like in j'étais?

Accepted Answer

Ãˆtre is the only verb in French with an irregular stem in the imparfait. Usually, you find the imparfait stem by dropping the -ons from the present tense nous form. Since the nous form of être is sommes, it doesn't follow the rule. Instead, it uses the special stem ét-. To make j'étais, we take that stem and add the regular je ending for the imparfait, which is -ais.

Question 2

Why does the second half say je n'étais plus instead of je n'étais pas?

Accepted Answer

Ne ... plus is a negative structure meaning "no longer" or "not anymore." If the speaker said je n'étais pas rebelle, it would just mean "I was not rebellious." Using plus instead of pas shows a change over time—they used to be rebellious, but that is no longer the case.

Question 3

If a woman were saying this sentence, how would it change?

Accepted Answer

Only one word would change: indépendant would gain an extra -e to become indépendante. The other adjectives here, idéaliste and rebelle, already end in an -e in their base masculine form. In French, when an adjective already ends in an -e, it stays exactly the same in the feminine form.

Question 4

Why do the pronouns and negative words shrink to j' and n' here?

Accepted Answer

This happens because of a rule called elision. When short words ending in -e like je (I) and ne (the first half of a negative) are placed right before a word starting with a vowel, they drop the -e and add an apostrophe. Since the verb étais starts with the vowel é, je étais must become j'étais and ne étais plus must become n'étais plus.

J'étais indépendant et idéaliste, mais je n'étais plus rebelle.

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