Adverbs of frequency
How often something happened. These pair with the imperfect constantly, because habit is what the imperfect describes.
The scale:
| toujours | always |
|---|---|
| souvent | often |
| quelquefois / parfois | sometimes |
| rarement | rarely |
| ne … jamais | never |
Position: after the conjugated verb, not before it.
- Je vais souvent au marché. (not je souvent vais)
- Il était toujours en retard.
This is the opposite of English, which puts the adverb before the verb ("I often go"). Placing it English-style is the single most common error with these words.
In the passé composé they go between the auxiliary and the participle: J'ai souvent travaillé le samedi. · Elle n'est jamais venue.
Longer expressions go at the start or the end of the sentence, not inside it:
| tous les jours | every day |
|---|---|
| toutes les semaines | every week |
| une fois par mois | once a month |
| deux fois par an | twice a year |
| de temps en temps | from time to time |
| d'habitude | usually |
D'habitude, je me levais à sept heures. · Nous y allions une fois par semaine.
jamais needs its ne. Je ne mangeais jamais de viande. On its own, in an answer, jamais stands alone — Tu y vas ? — Jamais. — but inside a sentence with a verb the ne is not optional in writing, however often it disappears in speech.
Knowing the rule is not the same as producing it.
This page explains the pattern. The track drills it: the point arrives inside a mini-dialogue, then production marked against a CEFR descriptor, then a module test that returns you to your two weakest sessions if you miss it.