Imperfect Tense — Charts, Uses, Contrast with Preterite & Quizzes
The past tense for ongoing, repeated, habitual, or background actions — the "used to" and "was -ing" tense.
If the preterite is a photograph (one frozen moment, complete and done), the imperfect is a video still playing — an action that was ongoing, repeated, or had no definite end.
Cuando era niño, vivía en México.
When I was a child, I lived in Mexico. (both ongoing states — imperfect)
This is the whole system. -AR verbs get -aba endings. -ER and -IR verbs get -ía endings. No other tense looks like this — so when you see -aba or -ía on a verb, you're always looking at the imperfect.
The -aba ending is the signature you already spotted. Every regular -AR verb follows this exactly.
| Pronoun | hablar | trabajar | caminar | vivir |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| yo | hablaba | trabajaba | caminaba | vivía |
| tú | hablabas | trabajabas | caminabas | vivías |
| él/ella | hablaba | trabajaba | caminaba | vivía |
| nosotros | hablábamos | trabajábamos | caminábamos | vivíamos |
| ellos | hablaban | trabajaban | caminaban | vivían |
This is what you saw on WordReference for comer — comía is the imperfect, not the preterite. Both -ER and -IR verbs use the exact same -ía endings.
| Pronoun | comer (-ER) | beber (-ER) | vivir (-IR) | escribir (-IR) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| yo | comía | bebía | vivía | escribía |
| tú | comías | bebías | vivías | escribías |
| él/ella | comía | bebía | vivía | escribía |
| nosotros | comíamos | bebíamos | vivíamos | escribíamos |
| ellos | comían | bebían | vivían | escribían |
One of the great gifts of the imperfect — only three verbs in the entire language are irregular. Memorize these and you're done.
Four situations. Learn to recognize them and you'll always know when to reach for -aba and -ía.
Something you did regularly or repeatedly in the past. The English signal is "used to."
An action that was already happening when something else occurred.
What things looked like, felt like, or were like. Age, time, weather, emotions, mental states.
Background information in a story — painting the picture before the action happens.
In real Spanish storytelling, the two tenses work together. Imperfect sets the scene; preterite tells what happened.
Read this and notice which tense does which job:
Era (imp) una noche oscura. Llovía (imp) y hacía (imp) mucho frío. Caminaba (imp) sola por la calle cuando de repente escuché (pret) un ruido. Me detuve (pret) y miré (pret) hacia atrás.
It was a dark night. It was raining and very cold. I was walking alone down the street when suddenly I heard a noise. I stopped and looked back.
■ Teal = imperfect (scene, background, ongoing) · ■ Gold = preterite (events that moved the story forward)
Same verbs, same people — but the tense changes the meaning completely.
The most common combined pattern — imperfect for background, preterite for what cut in.
| Imperfect — in progress | cuando | Preterite — interruption |
|---|---|---|
| Dormía | cuando | sonó el teléfono. |
| I was sleeping when the phone rang. | ||
| Comíamos | cuando | llegó ella. |
| We were eating when she arrived. | ||
| Leía tranquilamente | cuando | apagaron las luces. |
| I was reading quietly when they turned off the lights. | ||
Select the correct imperfect conjugation. You'll see an explanation after each answer.
Type the correct form. Accent marks optional — both accepted.
Click any verb to open its WordReference conjugation table. Filter by type.
| Verb | Meaning | Type | yo | tú | él/ella | nosotros | ellos |
|---|