The imperfecto

Unit 2, Etapa 1

At the end of this Etapa students should:

be able to...

know how to use...

• Describe childhood experiences
• Express personal reactions
• Discuss family relationships

Vocabulary for:
children's games, toys and activities

Grammar:
•Past (preterit) tense
• Possessive adjectives and pronouns
• [ir] + a + VERB in the preset tense to express a future plan or intention
• Reflexive pronouns and verbs (e.g. esconderse)
• The imperfecto of regular verbs and of ser, ir and ver

This unit will review the past (preterit) tense and will introduce the imperfect tese. The past tense is used for actions in the past when one is highlighting when the action began or ended or when a specific thing happened. The imperfect can be translated as was doing something or used to do something. The conjugation of the imperfect for regular verbs by ending is:

-ar verbs				m	-er/-ir verbs
yo	-aba	nosotros nosotras	-ábamos		yo	-ía	nosotros nosotras	-íamos
tú	-abas	vosotros	-abais		tú	-ías	vosotros	-íais
Ud. él ella	-aba	Uds. ellos ellas	-aban		Ud. él ella	-ía	Uds. ellos ellas	-ían

The irregular verbs ser, ir and ver are conjugated below:

	ser	ir	ver
Singular forms
yo	era	iba	veía
tú	eras	ibas	veías
Ud. él ella	era	iba	veía
Plural forms
nosotros nosotras	éramos	íbamos	veíaamos
vosotros	erais	ibais	veíais
Uds. ellos ellas	eran	iban	veían

The imperfecto

Unit 2, Etapa 1

be able to...

know how to use...

-ar verbs

m

-er/-ir verbs