Imperfect Past (Imperfecto)

Unlike English which has only one basic past tense, Spanish has two basic tenses regarding the "past" on the timeline, realized through their respective verb conjugation forms:

• Imperfect Past (Imperfecto): Expresses an action being done at a certain point in the past. "Imperfect" here does not mean clearly that the action was not completed, but that the tense does not contain any information about whether the action was completed.

• Simple Past (Pretérito): Expresses an action done in the past time.

The Imperfect Past we learn in this chapter roughly corresponds to 5 major scenarios in English:

Next, we will first calculate the "Basic Component" of Imperfect Past — imperfecto verb conjugation. After mastering the basic component, we will learn the five major scenarios in the table above one by one.

Mini-Imperfecto: There is a "mini version" learning method in this chapter. You only need to memorize the imperfecto conjugation of the four major verbs Ser/Estar/Tener/Haber, and then combine with the first scenario in the table above (was/were+adj), to cover 80% of imperfect past scenarios, because the most commonly used usage of this tense is historical state description like "I was busy", which is Scenario 1 in the table. This scenario only involves the three major verbs Ser/Estar/Tener/Haber.

Imperfecto Verb Conjugation

The rules for regular Imperfecto conjugation are as follows:

We see that the Imperfecto conjugation rules are much simpler than the Present Indicative conjugation rules. Summary as follows:

1. The ending replacement methods for -er and -ir are exactly the same.

2. Yo conjugation is completely merged into the third person singular (i.e., Yo/Él/Ella/Usted are grouped into the same conjugation form).

3. Imperfecto conjugation endings are actually obtained by inserting ab or í before the Present Indicative conjugation endings of -ar verbs:

Note that the stress of Imperfecto conjugation is always on the first syllable of the ending, so -ábamos needs a stress mark to "pin" the stress on á (otherwise it would fall on the following ba according to default rules). And the stress marks of -ías/-ía/-íamos/-ían play a Forced Segmentation role mentioned in the "Pronunciation" chapter, and also simultaneously play the role of pinning the stress on the first syllable (í) of the ending.

Imperfecto Stress Anchor Rule: The stress is always on the first syllable of the ending. If this is not the case according to default rules, use a stress mark to "pin" the stress on the first syllable of the ending.

The rules for imperfecto verb conjugation that need to be memorized are basically the table above, and the memory path is:

Based on the endings of regular -ar verb conjugation in Present Indicative, insert ab and í for the -ar group and -er/-ir group respectively.

In the table below, we list 6 highest frequency imperfecto verb conjugations, including three regular conjugation verbs: Estar, Tener, Haber, and three irregular conjugation verbs: Ser, Ir, Ver. Note that in the table below we group Yo and Él/Ella/Usted together.

In the table, haber (its imperfecto conjugation is completely regular) only lists the third person singular había (corresponding to the impersonal form hay of haber third person singular). This is because as an auxiliary verb, the imperfecto conjugation of haber is actually only used for other tenses (Past Perfect). We will not encounter the word haber in sentences of imperfecto tense — the only exception is the imperfecto form había (there was/were) corresponding to the existential hay (there is/are).

The three irregular verbs in the table above, Ser/Ir/Ver, are all the irregular verbs in the imperfecto tense. Note that we once again used the "Stunt Trick" to "regularize" the conjugation of these three verbs.

1. Past Description (Description)

If you wish to learn the "Mini version of Imperfect Past", then after the previous knowledge preparation about the conjugation of the four major verbs Ser/Estar/Tener/Haber, you only need to learn this section.

The most important scenario of Imperfecto is describing past states/processes, but not including information about their start or end. The following table lists the main usage of imperfecto describing past states according to the four verbs:

2. Action in Progress (was/were + doing)

The second largest scenario of Imperfecto is describing doing something at a certain point in the past (also giving no information about the start and end of the action), corresponding to the was/were + doing structure in English.

• Trabajaba. (I was working.)

• Dormía cuando llamaste. (I was sleeping when you called.)

The adverbial clause of time in the second example is in Simple Past (pretérito), which we will learn in the later chapter "Pretérito".

Spanish also has a "formal" Past Continuous, realized by imperfecto conjugation of estar + participle (ndo), e.g., "Estaba trabajando.". The Past Continuous overlaps grammatically with the imperfecto* indicating action in progress. This tutorial will explain the Past Continuous in the "Buy One Get Two Free" part of the optional chapter "Progressive".

3. Used+to Structure

English uses a dedicated used+to structure to express something often done in the past, and this structure corresponds to the imperfecto tense in Spanish. This scenario is usually used with siempre (always) / a menudo (often) / todos los días (every day).

• Yo jugaba al fútbol todos los días. (I used to play football every day.)

• Yo fumaba. (I used to smoke.)

We mentioned the comparison of Inflectional Grammar vs Analytic Grammar before. Here is a cross-language comparison of two modes: both to express "often did something in the past", English used-to is analytic grammar (auxiliary + infinitive), while Spanish uses imperfecto conjugation to realize it — belonging to inflectional grammar.

4. Mental State (want/think/know)

The logic of this scenario is that actions related to will and cognition such as want/think/know naturally have a continuous state. For example:

• Quería ir. (I wanted to go.)

• Lo sabía. (I knew it.)

Warning: If these words use Simple Past (Pretérito), the meaning will suddenly change to "action happened": Quise (I tried), Supe (I figured).

5. Politeness

This is the mirrored version in Spanish of using "I wanted..." to replace the slightly strong "I want..." in English.

For example:

• Quería un café, por favor. (I would like/wanted a coffee, please.)

• Quería pedirte un favor. ( I wanted to ask you a favor.)

• Hola, quería hablar con María. (Hello, I wanted to speak with Maria.)