recevais

Recevais is the imperfect indicative form of the French verb recevoir, meaning to receive. In the imperfect tense, it corresponds to the first person singular (je recevais) or the second person singular (tu recevais). The other imperfect forms of recevoir are: il recevait, nous recevions, vous receviez, ils recevaient. The imperfect is used to describe past actions or states that were ongoing, repeated, or habitual in the past.

The verb recevoir itself comes from the Latin recipere, meaning to take back or to receive. In modern French, recevoir has a variety of uses beyond physical reception, including receiving objects, people, information, or benefits, as well as expressions related to hosting or collecting.

Usage notes:

- Recevais conveys a sense of continuity or repetition in the past: Je recevais souvent des messages. I used to receive messages often.

- It can appear in narratives to set a past scene or describe a habitual action: Autrefois, je recevais des invités chaque week-end.

- In questions or negations, the form remains the same with the appropriate subject pronoun: Est-ce que tu recevais beaucoup de courrier à l’époque? Je ne recevais rien.

Related forms include recevoir in other tenses (reçois, recevrai, reçu, recevoir) and its past participle reçu, used in compound tenses like le passé composé. Recevoir remains a common verb in everyday French, with recevais being a key imperfect form for describing past experiences.