The Imperfect Tense

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From the course by University of California, Davis

Spanish Vocabulary: Sports, Travel, and the Home

32 ratings

University of California, Davis

Spanish Vocabulary: Sports, Travel, and the Home

32 ratings

Course 3 of 5 in the Specialization Learn Spanish: Basic Spanish Vocabulary

Ready for the big game? Building on the vocabulary and skills that you have already mastered, this third course of the specialization will introduce new vocabulary that will prepare you to discuss sports, pastimes and politics -- important cultural elements of the Spanish-speaking world. You’ll also add new vocabulary relating to travel and living arrangements. This course also introduces the progressive tense and past tense and you will add to your vocabulary of helping verbs.

From the lesson

Module 3: Talking About Your Living Arrangements

In this last module we will discuss living arrangements such as life on the farm or in the city, or living with family or on your own. You will practice narrating stories that happened in the past and compare the imperfect tense to the preterite. We will introduce some irregular preterite verbs and in the perspectivas section, you will listen carefully to Rebeca who will talk about several of the living arrangements she has experienced.

Introduction to Gramática0:37

The Imperfect Tense4:16

Some Irregular Verbs in the Preterite Tense5:51

The Contrast Between the Imperfect and Preterite Tenses2:27

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Robert Blake
Professor & Director
UC Consortium for Lanuage Learning & Teaching (UCCLLT)

[MUSIC]

The imperfect tense.

Past actions, not viewed as completed are expressed with the imperfect tense.

You can use the imperfect to refer to repeated, habitual, in progress, ongoing

or other past events, without reference to when they began or when they ended.

Such as one's childhood, which doesn't have a beginning or really an end,

but it's really more important to think about the period in the middle.

Descriptions in the past are usually expressed with the imperfect

because starting and ending points are not the focus of what you're saying.

Descriptions are about middles.

You can use the imperfect to set the stage for

other more dramatic actions that took place or were taking place.

For instance, if I say [FOREIGN], translated, I was cleaning

my house and listening to music on

the radio when someone knocked at the door.

In this case, the cleaning the house, the listening to the music set the stage for

the action of someone who came and knocked on the door.

The imperfect tense endings are for a r verbs,

aba and for ir verbs, ia respectively.

Verbs that express states tend to be in the imperfect, when talking in the past.

For example, tenia un dolor de cabeza, I had a headache.

The importance is the middle of the having the headache.

Me sentia mal, I was feeling bad.

Again the importance is the middle of the feeling bad.

Estaba triste, I was sad.

Sabía mucho, I knew a lot.

You not referring to the end or the beginning of knowing, it's the middle.

Me hacía falta café, I needed a coffee.

So, now let's look at the charts, first for

the ar imperfect verb endings, the aba.

So with the verb, [FOREIGN] We have, [FOREIGN]

For the the eri or verbs we have the endings which end in.

So com-ia, com-ias, com-ia, com-iamos, com-iais, com-ian.

Or with a bridge abr-ia, abr-ias,

abr-ia [FOREIGN] Let's look at some examples.

[FOREIGN]

My landlord

always collected the rent at the end of the month.

[FOREIGN] My friends visited me off and on in the hospital.

[FOREIGN] When I was a child my mother used

to hid my comics.

[FOREIGN] To get to school I used to

leave the house very early.

So all of the verbs and the actions refered to in the examples,

are focusing in on the middle and that's what you signal with the imperfect tense.

Now, there are only a few irregular verb forms in the imperfect.

For the verb ser, ir, and ver.

So for It's [FOREIGN] For

[FOREIGN] It's [FOREIGN] And

finally for ver, it's [FOREIGN]

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