Lesson 24 The imperfect tense

In Spanish, the imperfect, along with the preterit, is used to talk about past actions as we have seen on lesson  13 here, well the imperfect is used to talk about actions that do not have a clear begining and end.


Cuando era joven yo Iba a la playa..............When I was young I would go to the beach

caminábamos por el malecón...... .................We used to walk along the boardwalk

-The imperfect of verbs that finish with -ar

      Luckily, the imperfect has hardly any irregular forms, with these verbs just drop the-ar and add-aba, -abas, - ábamos, -abais, -aban ex:

from cantar: yo cantaba, tu cantabas, el cantaba, nosotros cantábamos, vosotros cantabais, ellos cantaban.

-The imperfect of verbs that finish with -er and -ir drop the er or ir and add -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían ex: from verb comer and decir ( to eat, to say): yo comía, tu comías, el decía, nosotros decíamos, ellos comían.

ex:      el lunes te decía lo mismo.............On monday I said the same
          cuando era pequeño me lo comía todo....when I was young i ate all
          leía todas las cartas.................................I read all the letters.