Both of these tenses are past speech. However, the Passé Composé describes what happened whereas the imperfect describes what WAS GOING ON. The Passé Composé has a SPECIFIC beginning and end whereas the imperfect is ongoing. When the action began or ended is not important.

There are two helping verbs that are used in this tense. "Être" or "Avoir" will be used in their present tense form along with a past participle. Verbs that are regular that end in "er" will change to é, "ir" to i, and "re" to u. Be leery! Some verbs have irregular past participles and though they are few, it is important to have those verbs memorized.

The imperfect is formed by finding the "nous" form of the verb in the present tense, take off the "ons" from the verb, and adding the imperfect endings which are: ais, ais, ait, ions, iez, and aient.

Rule #1: When using "avoir" as the helping verb in the passé compose, the past participle NEVER agrees with the subject, but it can agree with the direct object or the direct object pronoun if the direct object or direct object pronoun comes before the verb.

Rule #2 When using "être" as the helping verb in the passé composé, the past participle will agree with the subject(s) if there is not a direct object interjected into the sentence. Example: Elle est descendue versus Elle a descendu sa valise.

A reflexive verb is a verb that describes action being done on oneself. The reflexive pronouns se, me, te, nous, and vous are used depending on the subject of the sentence. être is always the helping verb used when a reflexive verb is in the passé composé.

NO! Though you use être as the helping verb in this tense, agreement is not performed on the subject, but the reflexive pronoun. However, the reflexive pronoun must be the direct object of the sentence for there to be agreement with the past participle. Example: Elles se sont parlé versus Elles se sont regardées. The first example is indirect action. WHY? They talked TO each other versus They saw each other. The second example is direct in nature so agreement is performed.