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The imperfect: build the background of a past scene

CEFR A2

What you will learn

  • Build all six persons of regular imperfect verbs and the three irregular paradigms.
  • Use the imperfect for past habits, descriptions, age, time and background actions.
  • Contrast an imperfect background with a preterite event that advances the story.

The idea

Use the imperfect when the sentence tells what the setting was like, what normally happened, what time it was or what was already in progress. It gives the reader the view from inside the past situation. The tense does not say that an action was unfinished in real life. It simply leaves its boundaries outside the sentence.

All regular “-ar” verbs use “-aba”. Regular “-er” and “-ir” verbs use the same “-ía” family. The written accent remains throughout that second family.

The first and third-person singular forms are identical. A stated subject or the surrounding discourse resolves who is acting when the context does not.

Complete regular imperfect

personhablarcomervivir
yohablabacomíavivía
túhablabascomíasvivías
él / ella / ustedhablabacomíavivía
nosotros / nosotrashablábamoscomíamosvivíamos
vosotros / vosotrashablabaiscomíaisvivíais
ellos / ellas / ustedeshablabancomíanvivían

The only three irregular imperfect verbs

personserirver
yoeraibaveía
túerasibasveías
él / ella / ustederaibaveía
nosotros / nosotraséramosíbamosveíamos
vosotros / vosotraseraisibaisveíais
ellos / ellas / ustedeseranibanveían

How it sounds

  • The two tenses express different viewpoints, not different distances from the present.The full market is a state that frames the scene. The music begins at a bounded point and advances the story. Therefore “estaba” is imperfect and “empezó” is preterite.
Three background panels: a house with two balconies, recurring winter train tickets, and rain beside an eight o'clock clock and a ringing telephone.
Description, repeated habit and an action in progress all open a past scene.

Your turn

Two or three, to check that the bit above landed.

  1. Use this image

    Use the house panel as a past description: En 2018, la casa ___ dos balcones. (tener)

    tenía — The balconies describe the house in that past period. “Tener” is regular in the imperfect and takes “-ía”: “tenía”.

  2. Use this image

    Use the repeated winter tickets: Todos los inviernos, nosotros ___ en tren. (viajar)

    viajábamos — “Todos los inviernos” marks a repeated past habit. The “nosotros” imperfect of an “-ar” verb ends in “-ábamos”.

  3. Use this image

    Use the rain, clock and phone panel: ___ cuando sonó el teléfono. (llover)

    Llovía — The rain is the action already in progress; “sonó” is the bounded event that interrupts it.

What your own language pushes you to say

Wrong De niño fui al parque todos los domingos.

Right De niño iba al parque todos los domingos.

“Todos los domingos” builds a repeated past habit, so the imperfect is the neutral choice.

Once it makes sense

Practise this: “Comí” or “comía”The preterite: place a finished event on the timelineThe present perfect: a past event connected to now