Learn Hardcore French: Hier, Marie travaillait à l'hôpital toute la journée. - Yesterday, Marie was working at the hospital all day.

The imparfait describes an ongoing, continuous, or habitual action in the past without focusing on its beginning or end. Here, “Marie travaillait à l’hôpital toute la journée” highlights that her work spanned the whole day. Using the passé composé (Marie a travaillé) would present it as a completed event, focusing on the fact that she did work rather than on its duration.

What nuance does using the imparfait add to the action?

By using travaillait, you emphasize the background or setting of the past situation—how things were unfolding throughout that day. It gives the sense of “she was working all day,” rather than simply stating “she worked all day” as a finished fact.

Why is hier placed at the start of the sentence? Could it come later?

Starting with hier immediately situates the action in time (“yesterday”). You could also say Marie travaillait à l’hôpital toute la journée hier, but fronting hier is more common for framing the time context before the main clause.

Why is it à l’hôpital and not au hôpital or dans l’hôpital?

To indicate location, French uses à + le/la/les, which contracts to au (à + le) or à la. Since hôpital begins with a vowel, à la becomes à l’.

au hôpital is incorrect because hôpital is masculine singular but requires contraction: à + l’ gives à l’hôpital.
dans l’hôpital would mean “inside the hospital” (emphasizing interior), whereas à l’hôpital simply means “at the hospital” (your place of work).

What does toute la journée literally translate to, and why is toute used instead of tout?

Literally, toute la journée is “all the day,” corresponding to English all day or the whole day. In French, journée is feminine, so the adjective tout must agree in gender, becoming toute.

Why is there no agreement on the verb travaillait for gender even though Marie is female?

Verbs in the imparfait are conjugated uniformly for all subjects; there is no gender agreement on the verb form. Gender agreement applies to past participles in compound tenses (with être or avoir in certain cases), but not to simple tenses like the imparfait.

Can we say Marie a travaillé à l’hôpital toute la journée hier? How would that change the meaning?

Yes, grammatically it’s fine. Using a travaillé (passé composé) frames the action as a completed event: “Marie worked at the hospital all day yesterday.” You lose the sense of an ongoing background action and instead present it as a finished fact.

Could we start with Toute la journée hier, like Toute la journée hier, Marie travaillait à l’hôpital?

Yes. That word order is grammatically correct but more formal or literary. It foregrounds the duration (toute la journée) more prominently before specifying hier. It places rhetorical emphasis on how long she worked before telling us when.