Question 1

The current lesson is about the progressive aspect (être en train de). Why don't we use était en train de venir here since the noise "was coming"?

Accepted Answer

The French imperfect tense (l'imparfait), like venait, already inherently describes ongoing, continuous background actions in the past. While you can use était en train de in the past to heavily emphasize that something was "right in the middle of" happening, the imperfect on its own is the standard and most natural way to express a progressive past state like this.

Question 2

Why is the adjective spelled continu instead of continue?

Accepted Answer

Bruit (noise) is a masculine noun, so it takes the masculine adjective form continu. If it were describing a feminine noun, you would add an -e. For example: une douleur continue (a continuous pain).

Question 3

Why does continu go after the noun bruit?

Accepted Answer

In French, most adjectives are placed after the noun, especially those describing objective facts, categories, or physical qualities. Only a specific set of short, common adjectives (often remembered by the acronym BANGS: Beauty, Age, Number, Goodness, Size) generally go before the noun.

Question 4

Since venait is in the imperfect tense, could this sentence also translate to "A continuous noise used to come from the street"?

Accepted Answer

Grammatically, yes. The imparfait is used both for ongoing actions ("was coming") and habitual past actions ("used to come"). However, if you are setting the scene in a story, "came" or "was coming" is usually the most natural translation.

Un bruit continu venait de la rue.

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