Spanish/Tenses/Indicative/Simple/Imperfect
-AR | -ER / -IR | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
conjugation | example | translation | conjugation | example | translation | |
-AR | hablar | to speak | -ER / -IR | comer | to eat | |
Yo | stem+aba | hablaba | I spoke | stem+ía | comía | I ate |
Tú | stem+abas | hablabas | You spoke | stem+ías | comías | You ate |
Él | stem+aba | hablaba | He spoke | stem+ía | comía | He ate |
Nosotros | stem+ábamos | hablábamos | We spoke | stem+íamos | comíamos | We ate |
Vosotros | stem+abais | hablabais | You all spoke | stem+íais | comíais | You all ate |
Ellos | stem+aban | hablaban | They spoke | stem+ían | comían | They ate |
Some things to note:
- The -ER and -IR verbs take exactly the same endings, just as they did in the preterite.
- There are only three irregular verbs (ser, ver, and ir) in this tense, making it by far the easiest tense to learn.
- The only difficulty with this tense arises because the yo and él forms are conjugated exactly the same (-aba and -ía). Although Spanish is a pro-drop language (meaning subject pronouns are usually excluded), it is often a good idea to include subject pronouns in these cases for clarity.