My question concerns the imparfait conjugation of the verb 'exister' in the sentence:
Aussi, lorsque j'ai appris qu'il existait un musée qui...
I would like to know if conjugating here in the imparfait (existait) does not imply that the museum used to exist, but no longer does. I am inclined to want to conjugate 'exister' in present tense to get around this problem, yet I know its gramatically incorrect to do so. If someone can help, I would greatly appreciate.
Have a good day all :)
Bonjour Paris,
That's an excellent question!
As Stevie explained, having "... qu'il existait un musée qui..." does not imply that the museum no longer exists. It simply indicates that, at the moment when you learnt about the museum, it existed. It does not carry the implication that the museum no longer exists today. The action of learning (j'ai appris) occurred at a specific point in the past, while the existence of the museum is described as being ongoing at that time. Therefore, you could not use Le Présent de l'Indicatif as you are describing a past experience, and in French, you must respect "la concordance des temps" (sequencing of tenses) in such expressions.
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !
In English, the phrase mirrors the French: "When I learned there was a museum which ...". Neither language version says anything about whether the museum still exists; rather, the imperfect is being used as a background to an event, my finding out about the museum. It's like the exercise in which we arrived while the burglars were leaving.
If the museum no longer existed, then I'd use the plus-que-parfait, "When I learned there had been a museum ..." / "Quand j'ai appris qu'il y avait eu un musée ..." to make clear that it no longer existed.
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