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The Spanish imperfect tense (el pretérito imperfecto o copretérito) is used to describe past habitual actions or to talk about what someone was doing when they were interrupted by something else.
You can’t talk about the past in Spanish without knowing how to use the imperfect tense. Below, you’ll find some key points about this tense and a chart that will help you determine if you need this tense:
We use the pretérito imperfecto (imperfect tense) in Spanish to provide descriptions about something in the past, including past habits and feelings, as well as to set the scene when talking about an action that was interrupted by another action.
Many students have trouble knowing when to use the preterite tense or the imperfect tense, as they both refer to actions in the past. There are several general rules you can follow to know when to use one tense or another.
Learn the rules for the imperfect past tense in Spanish. Listen to examples, read explanations, and practice with the exercises in two interactive quizzes. Skip to content
The imperfect tense in Spanish is used to talk about and describe past actions where the duration of the action is unspecified. The uses vary a lot. We’ll list them below with with example sentences.
The Spanish imperfect tense is less a grammatical fortress and more a friendly storyteller, enriching your narratives of the past. Unlike the preterite tense, which focuses on completed actions, the imperfect tense illuminates ongoing actions, habitual practices, and descriptive details.
The imperfect tense or the pretérito imperfecto de indicativo, is a Spanish past tense. It describes past states, actions that were in progress at a specific moment in the past or a habitual past action.
Learn how to use the imperfect tense Spanish with regular and irregular verbs and correct conjugations in this past tense in Spanish.
In short, you use the Spanish imperfect tense to talk about past habitual actions or about what someone was doing when they got interrupted by something else. Sometimes, people call it a “historic” tense, as the actions described in the imperfect tense have no connections to the present.