Word
La cigale chantait quand l'hiver est arrivé.
Meaning
The cicada was singing when winter arrived.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of La cigale chantait quand l'hiver est arrivé.
quand
when
arriver
to arrive
chanter
to sing
l'hiver
the winter (m)
Questions & Answers about La cigale chantait quand l'hiver est arrivé.
Is chantait the imperfect subjunctive we are learning about in this lesson?
No, chantait is the standard imperfect indicative. You can tell because it ends in -ait. The imperfect subjunctive form (which you are currently learning to recognize) would be chantât, with a circumflex over the a and ending in a single -t. We use the regular imperfect here because it is a simple statement of an ongoing past action, with no phrases that trigger the subjunctive (like il fallait que).
Why use the imperfect (chantait) for the first verb and the passé composé (est arrivé) for the second?
This is a great review of how to tell a story in French. The imperfect (chantait) sets the scene by describing an ongoing background action (the cicada was in the middle of singing). The passé composé (est arrivé) is used for the specific, completed event that suddenly interrupted that background action (winter arrived).
Why is the word arrivé not feminine, since la cigale is a feminine noun?
Because est arrivé goes with the subject l'hiver (winter), which is masculine. The cicada (la cigale) is the subject of the first verb (chantait), but the arrival is done by the winter. Since arriver uses être as its auxiliary verb in the passé composé, its past participle must agree in gender and number with its own specific subject (l'hiver).
Is there a cultural reason this sentence specifically talks about a singing cicada?