In Spanish,
the imperfect tense (el imperfecto) is used to describe past habitual actions or to talk about what someone was doing when they were interrupted by something else. In general, the imperfect is used to talk about past actions, conditions, or events that occurred regularly or frequently or that were in progress in a moment in the past. It is also used to tell time, talk about dates, give a person's age, and describe features, conditions, and feelings in the past. There are two type of conjugations in this verbal tense, namely:
Regular Imperfect Forms and
Irregular Imperfect Forms.
You can recognize only two sets of endings for <em>Regular Imperfect,</em> one for <em>ar</em> verbs and one for both er and ir verbs. If you want to conjugate a regular verb in the imperfect tense in Spanish, you need to remove the infinitive ending (<em>ar, er,</em> or
<em>ir</em>) and add the imperfect ending that matches the subject, as indicated in Table 1 (below).
There are only three verbs with irregular conjugations, namely: <em>ir, ser,</em> and <em>ver.</em> This is shown in Table 2 (below). Keep in mind that <em>ser</em> and<em> ir</em>
have the exact same forms in the preterite.
So let's solve this exercise:
1. Nosotros
íbamos a la selva.
[ir]<em>We were going to the jungle.</em>
2. Nosotros no
comíamos nada.
[comer]<em>We did not eat anything.</em>
3. Yo no
veía nada.
[ver]<em>I did not see anything.</em>
4. Yo
era profesora.
[ser]<em>I was a teacher.</em>
5. Gloria
trabajaba mucho en la tienda de ropa.
[trabajar]<span><em>Gloria did work a lot in the clothing store.</em></span>
6. Tú no
sabías nada.
[saber]
<em>You did not know anything</em>
7. El oso
comía las hojas verdes.
[comer]<em>The bear ate the green leaves.</em>
8. Tú
bailabas mucho en el club de jóvenes.
[bailar]<em>You danced a lot in the youth club.</em>
9. Nosotros
estábamos en Costa Rica.
[estar]
<em>We were in Costa Rica.</em>
10. Ud.
estaba en la clase de inglés.
[estar] <em>You were in English class.</em>
