How Do you form The imperfect tense in French?

Take the form of the present tense which goes with 'nous', take off the -ons, then add the ending as follows: je ..ais, tu ...ais, il ...ait, nous ...ions, vous ...iez, ils ...aient. E.g. we were going - nous allions, I was speaking - je parlais, they were finishing - ils finissaient. An exception to this rule is �tre - the imperfect tense begins with �t - e.g. I was/ used to be - j'�tais.