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The imperfect indicative generally has an imperfective meaning and describes situations in the past. Often the imperfect can be translated into English as 'was doing', but sometimes the simple tense 'did' or expressions such as 'used to do', 'would do', 'kept doing', 'began to do', 'had been doing' are more appropriate.
The imperfect indicative generally has an imperfective meaning and describes situations in the past. Often the imperfect can be translated into English as 'was doing', but sometimes the simple tense 'did' or expressions such as 'used to do', 'would do', 'kept doing', 'began to do', 'had been doing' are more appropriate. Situation at a ...
The imperfect (abbreviated IMPERF) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to walk".
The ancient Romans themselves, beginning with Varro (1st century BC), originally divided their verbs into three conjugations (coniugationes verbis accidunt tres: prima, secunda, tertia "there are three different conjugations for verbs: the first, second, and third" (), 4th century AD), according to whether the ending of the 2nd person singular had an a, an e or an i in it. [2]
The verbs ser (to be) and ir (to go) both exhibit irregularities in the present, imperfect and preterite forms (note that these two verbs have the same preterite fui). Together with ver (to see) and prever (to foresee), they are the only four verbs with irregular imperfect
The progressive aspects (also called "continuous tenses") are formed by using the appropriate tense of estar + present participle (gerundio), and the perfect constructions are formed by using the appropriate tense of haber + past participle (participio). When the past participle is used in this way, it invariably ends with -o.
The choice between present subjunctive and imperfect subjunctive is determined by the tense of the main verb of the sentence. The future subjunctive is rarely used in modern Spanish and mostly appears in old texts, legal documents, and certain fixed expressions, such as venga lo que viniere ("come what may").
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