Imperfecto

Antes vivíamos en Alicante

This is another Spanish past tense. It’s the second piece of the puzzle, that is needed to make narration of past events complete.

Knowing Indefinido and Imperfecto, you’ll be able to talk about almost everything that took place in the past.

You may think of Indefinido and Imperfecto as two past simple tenses that together form something like the Past Simple in English. In other words, while English has one Past Simple tense, Spanish has two – Indefinido and Imperfecto. It’s as if the English Past Simple were divided into two different verb forms with their particular use cases.

This is what sentences in Imperfecto look like:

Antes yo vivía en Alemania — I lived in Germany before

Cuando mi mamá era joven, estudiaba en la Universidad de Madrid — When my mom was young, she studied at the University of Madrid

Antes trabajábamos en la fábrica de automóviles — Before, we worked at an automobile factory

Los chicos jugaban al fútbol cada fin de semana — The children played football every weekend

Imperfecto is used when we talk about actions that were produced on a regular basis, or used to be produced in general. Using Imperfecto it’s important, that we don’t know, how many times an action was performed, nor how long it lasted.

Regular actions, like a timetable:

Los sábados cenábamos en un restaurante mexicano — On Saturdays we used to have dinner in a Mexican restaurant

Salía a pasear dos veces al día – I used to go out for a walk twice a day

During an unspecified period of time before:

Cuando yo era pequeño, leía mucho — When I was little, I read a lot

Antes ellos vivían en Barcelona – Before, they lived in Barcelona

The English used to construction can be a convenient translation for many sentences in Imperfecto.

Forms

Verbs in Imperfecto have two types of endings.

ar – aba

er, ir – ía

ar:

trabajar

yo trabajaba

tú trabajabas

él, ella, usted trabajaba

nosotros trabajábamos

vosotros trabajabais

ellos, ellas, ustedes trabajaban

Try it yourself:

mirar

yo …

tú …

él, ella, usted …

nosotros …

vosotros …

ellos, ellas, ustedes …

ayudar

yo …

tú …

él, ella, usted …

nosotros …

vosotros …

ellos, ellas, ustedes …

Antes viajábamos más – Before, we traveled more

Normalmente no me ayudabas – Usually, you didn’t help me

Cada verano yo visitaba a mi tía – Every summer I visited my aunt

Try it yourself:

Normally I cooked a lot

My friends danced on Fridays

We learned Spanish three times a week

Where did you work before? (vosotros)

er, ir:

tener

yo tenía

tú tenías

él, ella, usted tenía

nosotros teníamos

vosotros teníais

ellos, ellas, ustedes tenían

Try it yourself:

hacer

yo …

tú …

él, ella, usted …

nosotros …

vosotros …

ellos, ellas, ustedes …

comer

yo …

tú …

él, ella, usted …

nosotros …

vosotros …

ellos, ellas, ustedes …

¿Dónde vivías antes? – Where did you live before?

¿Qué hacían tus abuelos? – What did you grandparents do?

Antes vosotros comíais cereales, y ahora no los coméis – Before, you ate cereals, and now you don’t eat them

Try it yourself:

We had a dog

I wanted to go to Los Angeles

Sometimes, when the students asked the teacher, the teacher didn’t answer

Verb conjugation in Imperfecto is pretty simple, isn’t it? The good news is that there are almost no irregular verbs in Imperfecto. There are only three – ser, ir and ver.

ser

yo era

tú eras

él, ella, usted era

nosotros éramos

vosotros erais

ellos, ellas, ustedes eran

ir

yo iba

tú ibas

él, ella, usted iba

nosotros íbamos

vosotros ibais

ellos, ellas, ustedes iban

ver

yo veía

tú veías

él, ella, usted veía

nosotros veíamos

vosotros veíais

ellos, ellas, ustedes veían

Cuando yo era niño – When I was a child

Mi hermana y yo íbamos a las clases de pintura dos veces a la semana – My sister and I went to the painting classes twice a week

Try it yourself:

We used to watch movies at home

When I was little, I went to school

Imperfecto suits perfectly to describe someone’s childhood, when you talk about regular actions. If you need to say, that something happened once, or a determined number of times, or lasted for a certain period of time, Imperfecto is a wrong choice. Indefinido should be applied instead.

Imperfecto:

Vivíamos en un pueblo – We lived in a village (in general, not for a determined period)

Indefinido:

Vivimos en el pueblo 5 años – We lived in the village for 5 years

Imperfecto:

Yo compraba leche cada día – I bought milk every day (regular action, undetermined number of times)

Indefinido:

Un día compré una bicicleta – One day I bought a bicycle (once)

You’ll find out more about the difference between Indefinido and Imperfecto in the next section.

Time markers

Let’s list and learn the most common time markers, that go with Imperfecto.

antes – before

This adverb means that somebody used to do something for an undetermined period of time in the past, but not now.

Antes escribíamos cartas en una hoja de papel — Before, we wrote letters on a sheet of paper

сuando yo era …

cuando yo tenía …

cuando tú vivías …

Cuando éramos jóvenes, nos gustaba la música rock — When we were young, we liked rock music

Cuando tenía 20 años, salía mucho con amigos — When I was 20, I went out a lot with my friends

de niño — as a child

de pequeño — as a little girl / boy

De niño yo pescaba con mi abuelo — As a child I fished with my grandfather

De pequeña Marisa estudiaba en un colegio privado — As a little girl Marisa studied at a private school

frequency:

a menudo – often

normalmente – usually

a veces – sometimes

cada día – every day

los lunes – on Mondays

los fines de semana – at weekends

tres veces al mes – three times a month

A veces pasábamos las noches en un hostal – Sometimes we spent nights at a hostel

Me lavaba el pelo dos veces al día – I washed my hair twice a day