Learn French: Le lendemain, il pleuvait. - The next day, it was raining.

Le lendemain, il pleuvait.

The next day, it was raining.

Breakdown of Le lendemain, il pleuvait.

pleuvoir

to rain

le lendemain

the next day, the day after

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Questions & Answers about Le lendemain, il pleuvait.

Why is it le lendemain here instead of demain for 'the next day'?

In French, demain specifically means 'tomorrow' relative to the present moment. When you are telling a story in the past, you must use le lendemain to mean 'the following day' or 'the day after'.

Why is pleuvait in the imperfect tense rather than the passé composé (a plu)?

The imperfect tense is used here because the rain is the background setting of the story. It describes an ongoing state at that time ('it was raining'). If you used the passé composé (il a plu), it would imply a single, completed event ('it rained' and then stopped).

Who or what does il refer to in this sentence?

Here, il is an impersonal pronoun, just like the English 'it' in 'it was raining'. It doesn't refer to a person or a specific masculine noun. In French, weather expressions almost always use this impersonal il.

Does the verb pleuvoir exist in forms other than il?

No, pleuvoir (to rain) is an impersonal verb, meaning it is only ever conjugated in the third-person singular (il). You will only see forms like il pleut, il pleuvait, or il a plu.