What's perfect today may be imperfect tomorrow. Perfection is also subjective -- what might seem perfect to you may not be ...

I was watching TV (imperfect) when you phoned (perfect.) Il jouait au foot quand il est tombé. – He was playing football (imperfect) when he fell over (perfect).

The imperfect tense is different to the perfect tense because it tends to ... there is nothing difficult about the word order. In fact, it’s exactly like the simple past in English: Ich machte ...