Imparfait here?

Question

In the sentence with: qui me gâchaient la vie depuis des années...the english given was which had been ruining my life. Why the imparfait? I thought qui me gâchait would translate was spoiling or used to spoil my life.

Accepted Answer

The tip off is the phrase depuis des années. It is a long period of time and therefore the imperfect is used. In English you would translate it as something like: ...that used to mess with my life for years or ... that were messing with my life for years. Here the "used to" or use of continuous form (were messing) points to the use of the imperfect tense in French.