Learn French: Le public était impressionné parce qu'elle venait d'apparaître. - The audience was impressed because she had just appeared.

The phrase venir de followed by an infinitive verb means "to have just done" something. When you are telling a story in the past, you put venir into the imperfect tense (like venait) to mean someone "had just" done it. Here, elle venait d'apparaître translates exactly to "she had just appeared".

Why is "the audience" translated as le public instead of l'audience?

L'audience is a false friend! In French, it usually refers to a formal hearing (like in a courtroom) or an official meeting with an important person (like a king or the Pope). For the crowd watching a performance, you must use le public or les spectateurs.

Since "the audience" is a group of people, why is the verb singular (était)?

Even though it represents multiple people, le public is a singular noun grammatically. In French, collective nouns like le public, la famille (the family), and l'équipe (the team) always take a singular verb and singular adjectives. That is why we use était and the singular adjective impressionné.

Why use the imperfect tense (était) for "was impressed" instead of the passé composé (a été)?