Spanish Imperfect Past Tense

Imperfect Spanish Past Tense

The past is never perfect. You could have done things differently … unsaid what you said … or made a different decision.

However, in Spanish, the imperfect past does NOT refer to the things that you wish would have ended up differently. Rather, it is the name of the other major past tense in Spanish. You will use it a lot. If you can master the imperfect and the preterite, you will be able to talk about almost everything you want to talk about in the past.

The imperfect tense refers to a past action that is:

indefinite (no definite start or end date) or
continuous or repeated or
took place over a period of time or
started in the past but continues into the present.

… as opposed to events or actions that took place at a specific point in time (described by the preterite).

You should use the imperfect whenever you wish to describe what used to happen or what happened regularly/periodically in the past.

Some phrases that signal the use of the imperfect are as follows:

a veces	sometimes	mucho	a lot
cada día	every day	por un rato	for a while
cada año	every year	siempre	always
de vez en cuando	once in a while	tantas veces	so many times
frecuentemente	frequently	todas las semanas	every week
generalmente	usually	todos los días	everyday
muchas veces	many times	todo el tiempo	all the time

Distinguishing the Imperfect from the Preterite

The distinction between the imperfect and preterite past tenses is as difficult for English speakers to get their head around as the distinction between ser and estar. We just don’t think this way in English!

If you were born in Latin America, however, you’d find the difference between the imperfect and the preterite to be clear as day. It would be so obvious that you’d wonder how anyone couldn’t understand the difference.

The more you speak and listen to Spanish, the easier you’ll find it to use the right tense naturally, too. Right now, try this.

Think of the imperfect tense as a timeline.

Think of the preterite as a point on that timeline.

For example, visualize the sentence, “I was cooking when the phone rang.” The action of cooking would take place along the timeline, while the event of a ringing phone would be the point that interrupts it. As a result, you would translate it as follows:

The verb “was cooking” is in the imperfect, while the verb “rang” is in the preterite.

The handy table below will also help you distinguish between when you use the imperfect and when you use the preterite.

Using the PRETERITE Past Tense	Using the IMPERFECT Past Tense
You are talking about an occurrence which has been completed or has come to an end.	You are describing something that happened that has no definite beginning or end, or is still continuing on into the present.
Por ejemplo: Matías tuvo un accidente. - Matías had an accident.	Por ejomplo: Eduardo estudiaba leyes. - Edward studied law.
You are describing the beginning or end of something that has happened in the past.	You are describing something that occurred continuously over a period of time in the past, or what used to happen.
Por ejemplo: Ayer Lola empezó a trabajar. - Yesterday Lola started work.	Por ejemplo: Cuando yo era estudiante, estaba muy feliz. - When I was a student, I was very happy.
You are describing a series of events that followed each other in the past.	You are talking about previous mental, physical, or emotional conditions.
Por ejemplo: Juan corrió, se cayó, y se rompió la pierna. - Juan ran, fell, and broke his leg.	Por ejemplo: Ella estaba cansada y muy triste. - She was tired and very sad.

Now that you have some idea of when to use the imperfect past tense, I’ll let you in on some good news. The imperfect tense is 99% regular! This means that you won’t have to deal with hardly ANY of those complicated irregular verbs that you encountered with the preterite. Plus, it’s easy to conjugate.

Study the regular imperfect verb endings in the table below.

	ESTUDIAR (to study)	COMER (to eat)	VIVIR (to live)
yo	estudi-aba	com-ía	viv-ía
tú	estudi-abas	com-ías	viv-ías
Ud., él, ella,	estudi-aba	com-ía	viv-ía
nosotros/as	estudi-ábamos	com-íamos	viv-íamos
vosotros/as	estudi-abais	com-íais	viv-íais
Uds., ellos, ellas	estudi-aban	com-ían	viv-ían

ejemplo:

Irregular Verbs in the Imperfect

You’re going to love this. There are only THREE irregular verbs in the imperfect. The only down side is that they are verbs that you will use frequently: ser, ver, and ir.

	SER (to be)	VER (to see)	IR (to go)
yo	era	veía	iba
tú	eras	veías	ibas
Ud., él, ella,	era	veía	iba
nosotros/as	éramos	veíamos	íbamos
vosotros/as	erais	veíais	ibais
Uds., ellos, ellas	eran	veían	iban

ejemplo:

In the next section we'll talk about how to Use Multiple Tenses in a Sentence.

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