Learn French: Pour survivre, il fallait travailler dans les champs. - To survive, one had to work in the fields.

Pour survivre, il fallait travailler dans les champs.

To survive, one had to work in the fields.

Breakdown of Pour survivre, il fallait travailler dans les champs.

them (direct object pronoun)

Questions & Answers about Pour survivre, il fallait travailler dans les champs.

Why use the imparfait il fallait here instead of the passé composé il a fallu?

We use the imparfait il fallait because it describes a general, ongoing necessity in the past. It was not a single, one-time event that was completed. Instead, it describes how things used to be: back then, it was always necessary to work in the fields to survive.

Does il in il fallait refer to a specific person, like "he had to work"?

No, falloir is an impersonal verb. The il here just means "it", similar to how we say "it is raining" in English. The phrase il fallait translates to "it was necessary", which is often expressed in English as the general "one had to" or "people had to".

Why does the sentence start with Pour survivre instead of a conjugated verb?

When the preposition pour is followed by an infinitive verb like survivre, it translates to "in order to". This is a very common structure in French to explain the purpose of an action, so pour survivre means "in order to survive".

Why is travailler not conjugated here?

The expression il fallait is followed directly by an infinitive verb to state what action was necessary. Just like you would say il faut travailler for "it is necessary to work" in the present, you use il fallait travailler for the past.