Latin/Imperfect Tense Lesson 1

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This lesson we study the imperfect tense, the first tense other than present introduced in this course, and the simplest way of expressing past action. Imperfect tense is usually taught before perfect tense for this reason, although in actual Latin syntax, perfect may be more commonly used. We will study it later.

The imperfect tense is used to express ongoing, repeated, or habitual action in the past. It can be translated “I was (verb)ing” or “I used to (verb).” Although sometimes a simple past tense (“I (verb)ed”) may be a more natural English translation, you should keep using the –ing forms until the distinction between imperfect and perfect tenses is well established.

In these lessons, we’ll try to give the most natural-sounding English translation in the sentences with suggested alternates in parentheses; but in the Memrise course, which just drills the vocabulary, I’ll require the “was/were verbing” translation. But there are exceptions: “was” not “was being;” “had” not “was having.”

Forming the Imperfect
For regular verbs, the imperfect endings are:

They are added to the present stem (from the 1st principal part). If the verb is in the first conjugation, the combining vowel -a- is used. If the verb is in 2nd, 3rd, or 4th conjugation, the combining vowel -e- is used.

Written out with model verbs:

The irregular verb sum has a unique conjugation:

Practice
As always, if you have questions about the lesson, please leave a comment on the talk page. We will continue with imperfect tense verbs for a few more lessons. Bonam fortūnam!