~The Imperfect Tense~

2 Main Past Tenses in Spanish In Spanish, there are 2 main tenses used to talk in the past: 1. El Pretérito 2. El Imperfecto

El Pretérito Remember: The PRETÉRITO is used to talk about actions that are completed. They have a definite beginning and ending. Yesterday I ate dinner at 5:00. I woke up, got dressed, and ate breakfast.

El Imperfecto EL IMPERFECTO is a tense used to describe actions in the past that are not seen as completed. This tense is primarily used to DESCRIBE in the past.

Imperfect Context Background Preterite Immediacy of action Breaks with context Begin and end “Chops” the background of the imperfect Llegué al aeropuerto. Perdí mi equipaje. Llamé un taxi.  Hacía calor  Había muchas personas  Llevaba un jersey rojo  Era de noche Un golpe de karate:

El Imperfecto. It is also used to refer to more general or habitual actions.

El Imperfecto As a child, I used to always play soccer. My family and I travelled to Hawaii every Summer. I was very shy as a kid.

Conjugations: Drop the Ending (AR, ER, IR) Add: -AR Verbs: -aba-ábamos -abas -aba-aban * Note the ACCENT MARK on the NOSOTROS form!

Conjugations: For ER and IR Verbs: -ía -íamos -ías -ía -ían *NOTE = All of the endings have an accent on the “i”

Práctica: Hablar = hablaba hablabas hablaba hablábamos hablaban

Práctica: Comer = comía comías comía comíamos comíais comían

Irregular Verbs: *There are only 3 irregular verbs!!! ser eraéramos eras eraeran

ir iba íbamos ibas iba iban

ver veíaveíamos veías veíaveían

Use the Imperfect To: 1)To talk about actions that were repeated or habitual: We would eat watermelon every summer. (watermelon = sandía) Comíamos sandía todos los veranos.

Use the Impefect To: 2) To Tell Time in The Past And 3) To Tell Sombody’s Age In The Past

Era la una cuando ví la película. Eran las tres y media cuando empezó la clase. Yo tenía diez años cuando recibí mi primera bicicleta.

The imperfect is often used with time expressions, such as: Siempre Frecuentemente A veces Todos los años Todos los veranos

Práctica De niña, yo ___ con las muñecas. (jugar) *jugaba Mi familia y yo siempre ____ la Navidad con mis abuelos. (celebrar).celebrar) *celebrábamos*

Traduce al Español: I used to always wear jeans and T- shirts. When I was a kid, I used to play baseball with my friends every summer.

Práctica My family and I visited my grandparents in California every summer. My brothers swam in the river every day.

Práctica 1) As a kid I travelled frequently. 2) It was raining a lot yesterday. 3) My friends and I used to party a lot. 4) Mateo used to watch Barney every Saturday!