What is the imperfect tense?

The Spanish imperfect tense is used to describe past ongoing actions that have now finished.Luckily, in this tense there are only 2 different sets on endings to remember as verbs ending in -er and ir share the same endings. By removing the last 2 letters of most verbs in their infinitive form, you will get the stem for most regular verbs eg, hablar -> habla-ar -er/iryo -aba -ía -abas -íasél, ella, usted -aba -íanosotros -ábamos-íamosvosotros -abais -íaisellos, ellas, ustds -aban -íanThere is however more than one use for the imperfect tense in Spanish. It can also be used to:talk about something that was happening when something else occurredtalk about times and dates in the pasttalk about age in the pastgive descriptions in the past, especially those that set the scene in terms of the senses eg, characteristics, conditions and feelings

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Answered by Daniela S. Spanish tutor

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