The document discusses the Spanish imperfect tense, which is used to describe repeated or habitual past actions, ongoing past states, and background information. It provides examples of how the imperfect is used and explains how to form the imperfect of regular verbs and the irregular verbs ir, ver, and ser. Keywords that indicate the imperfect include siempre, a menudo, and varias veces. The imperfect of haber is había. The imperfect is distinguished from the preterite in that the preterite is used for single, memorable past events while the imperfect is used for repeated or habitual past actions.

1. Imperfecto

2. IMPERFECTO The imperfect tense is another past tense, distinct & NOT interchangeable with the preterit.

3. You’ve already learned to use the preterite tense to talk about completed actions in the past. Now you’ll review another past tense called the imperfect!! You can use the imperfect in the following ways: To speak about background events in a story. To talk about something you used to do as a habit. A repeated or habitual activity To speak about physical characteristics To express thoughts and Emotions To express time, age, and weather

4. The following examples use the imperfect because they describe continuing actions in the past. Los estudiantes hacían la tarea todos los días. The students did (used to do) the HW everyday. Don Fernando trabajaba en el banco todos los sábados. Don Fernando (used to) worked at the bank every Saturday. Mi abuelo siempre decía chistes muy divertidos. Mi grandpa always (used to tell) told funny jokes.

5. The following chart shows you how to form the imperfect of regular verbs. AR ER IR habl ar Com er Sal ir habl aba com ía Sal ía habl abas com ías Sal ías habl aba com ía Sal ía habl ábamos com íamos Sal íamos habl abais com íais Sal íais habl aban com ían Sal ían

6. ¡OJO! ♫ ♫ There are NO stem-changes in the imperfect tense.

7. ☼ There are only three irregular verbs in the imperfect! Ir (to go) Ver (to see) Ser (to be)

8. IR (to go) iba íbamos ibas ibais iba iban

9. VER (to see) veía veíamos veías veíais veía veían

10. SER (to be) era éramos eras erais era eran

11. KEY WORDS (PALABRAS CLAVES)… ☻ Certain words and phrases indicate an indefinite number of repetitions and therefore provide a cue for the use of the imperfect.

12. a menudo siempre a veces often always sometimes

13. todos los días every day frecuentamente frequently muchas veces many times

14. cada lunes every Monday generalmente generally varias veces several times

15. HABER there was, there were pretérito hubo there was, there were imperfecto había there is, there are presente hay MEANING TIEMPO FORMA

16. The imperfect tense of “hay” (there is, there are) is “había” (there was, there were). Notice this verb is both singular & plural. The preterit form is “hubo” (there was, there were in the sense of “there occurred”).

17. Distinction #1 Preterit for single, memorable actions or events (or a repeated a distinct number of times) Imperfect for repeated, habitual actions or events (# of repetitions not important!) In such cases, the imperfect is sometimes translated as “used to” or “would + verb”

18. Práctica.Contesta las siguientes preguntas con la forma correcta del imperfecto . 1. Yo siempre con unos muñecos de peluche. (jugar) 2. Nosotros veintiocho años. (tener) 3. __________ las nueve y media de la noche. (ser) 4. Mi hermana nunca a los árboles. (trepar) 5. Mis hermanitos siempre se malos en el centro comercial. (portar) 6. Cuando era niño, yo al España con mis padres todos los veranos. (ir) 7. Mis amigos a las discotecas cuando eran más jóvenes. (salir) jugaba teníamos Eran trepaba portaban iba salían