Learn French: Je préparais le dîner quand il y a eu une coupure. - I was preparing dinner when there was an outage.

Je préparais le dîner quand il y a eu une coupure.

I was preparing dinner when there was an outage.

Breakdown of Je préparais le dîner quand il y a eu une coupure.

Questions & Answers about Je préparais le dîner quand il y a eu une coupure.

Why is préparais in the imparfait tense here instead of the passé composé?

In this sentence, Je préparais sets the scene. It describes an ongoing background action ("I was preparing") that was happening when something else suddenly occurred. We use the imparfait for these "in progress" background actions.

Il y a eu means "there was"? How does that work?

Yes! You probably know il y a means "there is" or "there are". To say "there was" for a sudden, specific event, we put the verb avoir (to have) into the passé composé. Since the passé composé of a is a eu, il y a becomes il y a eu.

Why isn't it il y avait for "there was"?

We use the passé composé (il y a eu) here because the outage was a sudden, interrupting event that happened at a specific moment. If you were describing a situation that was already ongoing (like "there was a storm outside"), you would use the imparfait: il y avait.

What kind of "cut" does une coupure refer to here?

By itself, une coupure means a cut or an interruption. In this context, it usually means a power outage (une coupure de courant or une coupure d'électricité), even if the words for "power" or "electricity" are left out.