The Imperfect Tense by Laura K. Lawless
The imperfect tense (el imperfecto) is used to talk about a past action or state of being without specifying when it began or ended. It is often equivalent to the construction “was/were … — ing” in English. The Spanish imperfect is also used for descriptions, like hacía calor (it was hot) and can express repeated actions in the past, such as llamaba todos los días (I used to call every day).
Except for ir, ser, and ver, all Spanish verbs have regular conjugations in this tense, formed with the following endings:
— AR verbs |
— ER and — IR Verbs |
— aba — ábamos |
— ía — íamos |
— abas — abais |
— ías — íais |
— aba — aban |
— ía — ían |
