10.7: El Imperfecto

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Objetivos

Use -ar, -er, and -ir verbs in the imperfect past tense
Use ser, ir, and ver in the imperfect past tense

The imperfect tense is one of two ways to talk about events that happened in the past in Spanish. While the preterit is used to talk about completed actions in the past that narrate what happened, the imperfect is used to describe:

repeated, habitual, or usual actions in the past
describe actions that were ongoing in the past
describe what things were like in the past (what one “used to do”)

The imperfect can use time phrases that indicate repetition, such as “siempre”, “todos los días”, “todos los años”, “con frecuencia”, “usualmente”, “normalmente”, “a veces”, etc.

The imperfect tends to be one of the easiest tenses to conjugate, as well as the funniest—you try saying “trabajábamos” five times fast! Notice that the -ER and -IR verbs follow the same pattern and that the “yo” and “él/ella/usted” forms are the same conjugation. Here’s a chart of two example regular verbs in the imperfect tense:

	-AR: hablar	-ER/-IR: comer
yo	hablaba	comía
tú	hablabas	comías
él/ella/usted	hablaba	comía
nosotros	hablábamos	comíamos
vosotros	hablabais	comíais
ellos	hablaban	comían

Note that there’s only one accent mark in the -AR verbs and it occurs in the nosotros form, while -ER and -IR verbs have an accented “í” in every imperfect ending.

Ejemplos:

Cuando era niña, no había móviles. (When I was a little girl, there were no cellphones)*
Yo chateaba por internet mientras mi hermano montaba en bicicleta. (I chatted online while my brother rode a bike.)

* Remember that “haber” (“hay” in present tense, “hubo” in preterit, and “había” in the imperfect) is only used in the singular form.

There are only three irregular verbs in the imperfect: “ser”, “ir”, and “ver”.

	Ser	Ir	Ver
Yo	era	iba	veía
Tú	eras	ibas	veías
él/ella/usted	era	iba	veía
Nosotros	éramos	íbamos	veíamos
Vosotros	erais	ibais	veíais
Ellos	eran	iban	veían