Spanish Imperfect Tense (Pretérito Imperfecto): Uses and Endings

The Spanish imperfect tense (pretérito imperfecto) is the past tense for describing how things were, what used to happen and what was going on at a given moment: Vivía en Chicago (I lived in Chicago / I used to live in Chicago), Llovía (It was raining). In a story, the imperfect sets the scene, while the preterite reports the events that happen in it.

English has no single form that matches it. The Spanish imperfect usually corresponds to used to, to would when it describes a past habit, or to was/were + -ing, and sometimes to the simple past: Era alto (He was tall). That is why translating word by word does not work; you need to look at what the sentence means.

Textbooks from Spain call this tense pretérito imperfecto de indicativo; some Latin American schools use Andrés Bello's term copretérito. Do not confuse it with the imperfect subjunctive (hablara), a different tense. The good news: the imperfect is the easiest Spanish past tense to conjugate, with two sets of endings and only three irregular verbs.

On this page:

• when to use the Spanish imperfect, with English equivalents;
• signal words that point to the imperfect;
• regular conjugation: the -aba and -ía endings and accent marks;
• irregular imperfect verbs: ser, ir and ver;
• imperfect vs preterite, verbs that change meaning, and the past perfect;
• common mistakes English speakers make;
• example sentences in every person.

When to Use the Spanish Imperfect Tense

The imperfect looks at a past action from the inside, while it is happening, so it says nothing about when it ended. Every use below follows from that idea.

1. Habits and repeated actions in the past. This is the English "used to" or "would": Cuando era niño, jugaba al fútbol todos los sábados. (When I was a kid, I played soccer every Saturday.) Todos los veranos visitábamos a mis abuelos en Puebla. (Every summer we would visit my grandparents in Puebla.) The verb soler in the imperfect + infinitive means the same: Solía levantarme a las seis. (I used to get up at six.)
2. Descriptions of people, places, things and weather, including feelings and physical states: Mi abuela era bajita y tenía los ojos verdes. (My grandmother was short and had green eyes.) La casa estaba cerca del lago. (The house was near the lake.) Hacía mucho frío y nevaba. (It was very cold and it was snowing.) Estaba nervioso antes del examen. (I was nervous before the test.)
3. Telling time and age in the past. Both describe the situation, so they take the imperfect: Eran las once de la noche. (It was eleven at night.) Era la una. (It was one o'clock.) Mi hermano tenía quince años cuando aprendió a manejar. (My brother was fifteen when he learned to drive.) Remember that Spanish uses tener for age.
4. An action in progress when something else happened (English "was/were + -ing"). The imperfect is the background; the preterite is the interruption: Dormía cuando sonó el teléfono. (I was sleeping when the phone rang.) Íbamos por la autopista cuando empezó a llover. (We were driving on the freeway when it started to rain.) You can also use the past progressive, estar in the imperfect + gerund, to stress the process: Estaba durmiendo cuando sonó el teléfono. Unlike English, Spanish does not need the progressive here; the simple imperfect already means "was sleeping".
5. Two actions going on at the same time, usually joined by mientras (while): Mientras yo cocinaba, mi hermana ponía la mesa. (While I was cooking, my sister was setting the table.)
6. Polite requests. Just like English "I was wondering if...", the past tense makes a present wish sound softer: Quería pedirte un favor. (I wanted to ask you a favor.) Venía a preguntar por el apartamento. (I came to ask about the apartment.) In stores you may hear ¿Qué deseaba? (What would you like?)
7. Reported speech and plans that did not happen. When you report what someone said, a present tense usually shifts to the imperfect: "Estoy cansado" → Dijo que estaba cansado. (He said he was tired.) Ir a + infinitive in the imperfect means "was going to": Iba a llamarte, pero me quedé sin batería. (I was going to call you, but my battery died.)

English clues for the imperfect

English verb forms are a useful first hint, as long as you check the meaning. The trickiest one is "would": it means the imperfect only when it describes a past habit. A hypothetical "would" is the conditional.

Signal Words for the Imperfect

Some time expressions almost always go with the imperfect because they talk about habits or long stretches of life. Treat them as hints, not rules: siempre (always) can also take the preterite when the action is seen as closed, as in Siempre me apoyó (She always supported me).

Spanish Imperfect Conjugation: Regular Verbs

To form the imperfect, drop the infinitive ending (-ar, -er, -ir) and add the imperfect ending. There are only two sets: one for -ar verbs and one shared by -er and -ir verbs.

Imperfect endings

Hablar, comer and vivir in the imperfect

Accent marks, identical forms and no stem changes

• In -ar verbs, only the nosotros form has a written accent: hablábamos, trabajábamos, estábamos. The stress falls on the third-to-last syllable, and Spanish always marks that with an accent.
• In -er and -ir verbs, every form has an accent on the í: comía, comías, comíamos, vivían. It tells you to pronounce co-mí-a as three syllables. Leaving it out is a spelling mistake.
• The yo and él / ella / usted forms are identical: yo hablaba, ella hablaba. Spanish normally drops subject pronouns, but in the imperfect you often keep them when the context is not clear: Yo trabajaba y él estudiaba. (I was working and he was studying.)
• No stem changes. The imperfect is always built on the infinitive stem, so stem-changing verbs are regular here: pensar → pensaba (not piensaba), dormir → dormía, pedir → pedía, jugar → jugaba.
• No spelling changes either, unlike the preterite: buscar → buscaba, llegar → llegaba, empezar → empezaba. Verbs whose stem ends in a vowel are regular too: leer → leía, caer → caía, traer → traía.

Vosotros, ustedes and vos

Vosotros is used only in Spain. In Latin America, which is the Spanish most learners in the US hear, "you all" is always ustedes with the third-person plural form: Ustedes vivían cerca de la playa, ¿verdad? (You all lived near the beach, right?) In countries that use vos instead of tú, such as Argentina and Uruguay, the imperfect form is the same as for tú: vos hablabas, vos tenías.

Irregular Verbs in the Imperfect: Ser, Ir and Ver

The imperfect has fewer irregular verbs than any other Spanish tense: only ser (to be), ir (to go) and ver (to see). Verbs that are irregular almost everywhere else are perfectly regular here: tener → tenía, hacer → hacía, decir → decía, estar → estaba, poder → podía, venir → venía.

Ser, ir and ver: full imperfect conjugation

• Ser in the imperfect is the verb of description, identity and clock time: Era un pueblo pequeño. (It was a small town.) Eran las tres de la tarde. (It was three in the afternoon.) Only éramos has an accent.
• Ir expresses past habits (Iba al gimnasio los lunes, I used to go to the gym on Mondays) and, with a + infinitive, past plans (Íbamos a salir, pero empezó a llover, We were going to go out, but it started to rain). Only íbamos has an accent.
• Ver keeps the e in every form: veía, never vía. Its compound prever (to foresee) works the same way: preveía.

Hay → había, oír → oía

Hay (there is, there are) comes from haber, and its imperfect is había (there was, there were). It stays singular even before a plural noun: Había dos carros en la entrada. (There were two cars in the driveway.) As a helping verb, though, haber has all six forms (habíamos, habían) and forms the past perfect.

Oír (to hear), irregular in the present (oigo, oyes), is regular in the imperfect: oía, oías, oía, oíamos, oíais, oían. The same goes for traer (traigo but traía) and caer (caigo but caía).

Imperfect vs Preterite

Spanish has two simple past tenses, and choosing between them is the biggest challenge for English speakers. The preterite (pretérito indefinido) reports completed events: what happened. The imperfect describes the situation, the habits and what was in progress: how things were. Think of the imperfect as the scenery and the preterite as the action on stage. That is why the two so often share one sentence: Leía en el sofá cuando llegaron mis amigos. (I was reading on the couch when my friends arrived.)

Length of time does not decide the tense. A long action takes the preterite if it is presented as closed (Viví en Lima cinco años, I lived in Lima for five years), and a very short one takes the imperfect if it is the background for something else (Cerraba la puerta cuando oí un grito, I was closing the door when I heard a scream).

Same situation, two tenses

Notice that English uses "went" and "played" for both tenses, which is why translation alone cannot tell you the answer. The full rules, signal words for both tenses and an interactive quiz that explains each answer are on Preterite vs Imperfect: when to use each.

Verbs that change meaning

With a few verbs, the choice of tense changes the English translation:

Imperfect vs past perfect

The imperfect is a simple, one-word tense (hablaba). Its compound partner is the past perfect (pluscuamperfecto): the imperfect of haber + past participle, había hablado (I had spoken). The imperfect describes what was going on at a past moment; the past perfect tells what had already happened before it. Compare Cuando llegué, todos cenaban (When I arrived, everyone was having dinner) with Cuando llegué, todos habían cenado (When I arrived, everyone had already eaten).

Common Mistakes with the Imperfect

1. *eramos, *ibamos, *comiamos → éramos, íbamos, comíamos. Accent marks are part of the spelling, not decoration. The nosotros forms always carry one, and in -er/-ir verbs every form has an accent on the í: comía, vivías, decían.
2. *vía → veía. The imperfect of ver keeps the e: veía, veías, veíamos. Vía is a noun meaning "track" or "way".
3. *Habían dos personas → Había dos personas (There were two people). English "there were" makes the plural tempting, but existential haber is always singular: había un problema, había muchos problemas. You will hear habían in casual speech in some countries, but standard Spanish uses the singular.
4. *Ayer iba al doctor → Ayer fui al doctor (Yesterday I went to the doctor). A single, completed event at a specific time takes the preterite. The same goes for counted repetitions: Visité Roma tres veces (I visited Rome three times), not visitaba.
5. *Cuando era niño, iría a la playa cada verano → Cuando era niño, iba a la playa cada verano (When I was a kid, I would go to the beach every summer). Habitual "would" is the imperfect; the conditional iría is only for hypothetical "would".
6. *vivaba, *hablía → vivía, hablaba. The ending depends on the infinitive: -aba is only for -ar verbs; -er and -ir verbs take -ía.
7. *piensaba, *durmía, *tuvía → pensaba, dormía, tenía. The imperfect is built on the infinitive stem. Present-tense stem changes (pienso) and preterite stems (durmió, tuve) do not carry over.

Spanish Imperfect Examples

• Cuando era niña, pasaba los veranos en el rancho de mis abuelos. (When I was a little girl, I spent my summers on my grandparents' ranch.)
• ¿Qué hacías anoche a las diez? Te llamé dos veces. (What were you doing last night at ten? I called you twice.)
• Mi abuelo conocía a todos los vecinos del barrio. (My grandfather knew everyone in the neighborhood.)
• La tienda abría a las nueve y cerraba a las cinco. (The store opened at nine and closed at five.)
• Disculpe, ¿necesitaba usted algo más? (Excuse me, did you need anything else?)
• En la universidad estudiábamos en la biblioteca hasta medianoche. (In college we used to study in the library until midnight.)
• Mientras esperábamos el autobús, empezó a nevar. (While we were waiting for the bus, it started to snow.)
• ¿Ibais juntos al instituto? (Did you all go to high school together? Spain)
• Los niños jugaban en el parque mientras sus padres charlaban. (The kids were playing in the park while their parents were chatting.)
• Ustedes vivían en Houston antes de mudarse aquí, ¿no? (You all lived in Houston before moving here, right?)
• Mis hermanas veían caricaturas todas las mañanas. (My sisters watched cartoons every morning.)
• Había mucha gente en la plaza y hacía un calor terrible. (There were a lot of people in the square, and it was terribly hot.)

Imperfect Spanish Practice: How to Learn It

You can learn the forms in one evening: two sets of endings, the accent marks and three irregular verbs. The part that takes time is choosing between the imperfect and the preterite without stopping to think. Try this: pick an old family photo and describe it in the imperfect (where you were, what the weather was like, what everyone was wearing and doing). Then tell what happened right after the photo was taken, using the preterite. You will feel how the imperfect builds the scene and the preterite moves the story forward.

To make the forms automatic, conjugate them out loud or in writing until you no longer hesitate over the accent in éramos or the e in veía. On verbos.app you can practice imperfect conjugation with interactive exercises and choose which persons to drill.

Keep going with the other past tenses: the Spanish preterite, the present perfect and the past perfect, or compare the two simple pasts in preterite vs imperfect. For the rest of the verb system, see the present tense, the conditional, Spanish irregular verbs by tense, the 100 most common Spanish verbs and all Spanish tenses.