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El Imperfectode los verbos

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Talking about the past• There are ____ past tenses in

Spanish.• If the action occurred in

the______ and the speaker can tell precisely _____ the action occurred use the __________________.

2

PRETERITE (pretréito)

PASTWHEN

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Talking about the past• If the action occurred in

the______ and the there is no definite beginning or ending use the __________________.

Las chicas hablaban en inglés. The girls used to speak in English (no definite beginning or end)

IMPERFECTO (imperfect)

PAST

The _________________ (past) tense is like a SNAPSHOT of what happened in the past.

The _________________ (past) tense is like an ongoing film of what happened in the past.

PRETERITE

IMPERFECT

El imperfecto

The peterite tells us _____________when an action took place.

The imperfect tells us in ________________.

specifically

general

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FORMATION OF IMPERFECTTo conjugate regular –ar verbs in the imperfect1. Drop the infinitive ending2. Add “aba”

aba ábamosabas abaisaba aban

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(-ar verbs)trabajtrabajtrabaj

trabajtrabajtrabaj

Por ejemplo:

trabajar

abaabasaba

ábamosabaisaban

To conjugate regular –er/-ir verbs in the imperfect1. Drop the infinitive ending2. Add “ía”

ía íamos

ías íaisía ían

(-er / -ir verbs)

comíacomíascomía

comíamoscomíaiscomían

Por ejemplo:

comer

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(-er/-ir verbs)vivvivviv

vivvivviv

Por ejemplo:

íaíasía

íamosíaisían

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LOS IRREGULARES: There are only _________ irregular verbs in the imperfect.

1. ser=______________ 2. ir=_____________

veía veíamosveías veíaisveía veían

Era ÉramosEras EraisEra eran

Iba ÍbamosIbas IbaisIba iban

3

Used to be/was

Used to go/was going

3. ver= used to see/was seeing

Some words and phrases indicate repetitive, vague or non-specific time frames, and therefore signal the use of the imperfect.

a menudo (often) a veces (sometimes) cada día (every day) cada semana (every week) cada mes (every month) cada año (every year) con frecuencia (frequently) de vez en cuando (from

time to time) en aquella época (at that

time) frecuentemente

(frequently)

generalmente (usually) muchas veces (many times) mucho (a lot) nunca (never) por un rato (for awhile) siempre (always) tantas veces (so many

times) todas las semanas (every

week) todos los días (every day) todo el tiempo (all the time) varias veces (several times)