Imperfect

The imperfect, like the preterit, is a past tense. In English, we have one past tense. Spanish has two. You’ll learn to use them in the next slide show. Here, you’ll learn to form the imperfect. Fortunately, the imperfect tense, unlike the preterit, is very easy to form.

Just like you do when forming the present and the preterit, you drop off the –ar, -er, or –ir. Then you add the following endings: -ar -er/-ir -aba -ábamos-ía-íamos -abas -abais-ías-íais -aba -aban-ía -ían hablabahablábamos comíacomíamos hablabashablabais comíascomíais hablabahablaban comíacomían

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.here

There are no stem-changing verbs or spell- changing verbs in the imperfect. So this is how you form the imperfect of the following verbs: vuelve – volvíapides – pedías quieren – queríanpiensa – pensaba Always remember to go to the INFINITIVE and drop the –ar, -er, and –ir. If you don’t remember to do that, you’ll mess up on stem- changing verbs and irregular verbs: salgo – salía conozco – conocía pongo -- pon í a

There are only three irregular verbs in the imperfect: ser ir ver era éramosibaíbamosveía ve í amos eras eraisibasibaisveías veíais era eranibaibanveía veían

And that’s all there is to learning to form the imperfect. You learn the –ar endings and the -er and –ir endings, then you learn the three irregular verbs, and then you’re done. Click here to go to a practice exercise.here