Questions & Answers about Autrefois, il y avait des guerres et la vie était dure.
Why does the sentence use il y avait instead of il y a?
Il y a means 'there is' or 'there are'. To talk about how things used to be in the past, we put it into the imparfait (imperfect) tense, which makes it il y avait (there was / there were). We use the imparfait here because it sets the scene and describes an ongoing state in the past. What exactly does autrefois mean?
Autrefois translates to 'formerly', 'in the past', or 'in the old days'. It is a classic trigger word for the imparfait because it usually introduces a description of how things used to be over a long, undefined period of time. Why do we use des guerres instead of les guerres?
Des is the plural indefinite article, used for unspecified plural nouns. The sentence states there were wars in general, not specific known wars, so we use des guerres (wars) rather than les guerres (the wars). Why is it la vie when the English translation just says 'life'?
In French, when you talk about a general concept or something in its entirety, you must use a definite article (le, la, or les). Since life in general is being discussed, it needs the feminine article la. Why does dure have an -e at the end?
Adjectives in French must match the gender and number of the noun they describe. Dure describes la vie, which is a feminine singular noun, so you add an -e to the masculine form dur. Learn Autrefois, il y avait des guerres et la vie était dure and more in French
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