~The Imperfect Tense~

2 Main Past Tenses in Spanish

In Spanish, there are 2 main tenses used to talk in the past:

1. El Pretérito

2. El Imperfecto

El PretéritoRemember:

The PRETÉRITO is used to talk about actions that are completed.

They have a definite beginning and ending.

• Yesterday I ate dinner at 5:00. • I woke up, got dressed, and ate breakfast.

El Imperfecto EL IMPERFECTO is a tense used to

describe actions in the past that are not seen as completed.

This tense is primarily used to DESCRIBE in the past.

Imperfect • Context• Background

Preterite Immediacy of action Breaks with context Begin and end “Chops” the background of the imperfect

Llegué al aeropuerto.

Perdí mi equipaje.

Llamé un taxi.

Hacía calor Había muchas personas Llevaba un jersey rojo Era de noche

Un golpe de karate:

El Imperfecto.

It is also used to refer to more general or habitual actions.

El Imperfecto

• As a child, I used to always play soccer.

• My family and I travelled to Hawaii every Summer.

• I was very shy as a kid.

Conjugations:

• Drop the Ending (AR, ER, IR)• Add:

-AR Verbs: -aba -ábamos -abas-aba -aban

*Note the ACCENT MARK on the NOSOTROS form!

Conjugations:

For ER and IR Verbs:

-ía -íamos-ías-ía -ían

*NOTE = All of the endings have an accent on the “i”

Práctica:Hablar =

hablaba hablabas hablaba

hablábamos hablaban

Práctica:Comer =

comíacomías

comíacomíamos

comíaiscomían

Irregular Verbs: *There are only 3 irregular verbs!!!

ser

era éramoserasera eran

ir

iba íbamosibasiba iban

ver

veía veíamosveíasveía veían

Use the Imperfect To:

1) To talk about actions that were repeated or habitual:

• We would eat watermelon every summer. (watermelon = sandía)

•Comíamos sandía todos

los veranos.

Use the Impefect To:

2) To Tell Time in The Past

And

3) To Tell Sombody’s Age

In The Past

• Era la una cuando ví la película.

• Eran las tres y media cuando empezó la clase.

• Yo tenía diez años cuando recibí mi primera bicicleta.

The imperfect is often used with time expressions, such as:• Siempre• Frecuentemente• A veces• Todos los años• Todos los veranos

PrácticaDe niña, yo ___ con las muñecas.

(jugar)

*jugaba

Mi familia y yo siempre ____ la Navidad con mis abuelos. (celebrar).celebrar)

*celebrábamos*

Traduce al Español:

• I used to always wear jeans and T-shirts.

• When I was a kid, I used to play baseball with my friends every summer.

Práctica

• My family and I visited my grandparents in California every summer.

• My brothers swam in the river every day.

Práctica1) As a kid I travelled frequently.

2) It was raining a lot yesterday.

3) My friends and I used to party a lot.

4) Mateo used to watch Barney every Saturday!