Spanish: An Essential Grammar

Irregular imperfect tense forms

Only the verbs ser‘be’, ir‘go’ and ver‘see’ are irregular in the imperfect

tense. Their forms are shown in Table 10.20.

Table 10.20Imperfect tense (irregular forms)

Person Ser Ir Ver

Singular

1 (yo) era iba veía

2 (tú/vos) eras ibas veías

3 (él etc.) era iba veía

Plural

1 (nosotros) éramos íbamos veíamos

2 (vosotros) erais [SP] ibais [SP] veíais [SP]

3 (ellos etc.) eran iban veían

Preterite tense

For uses see 11.1.2.

The regular preterite

See Table 10.21. Vos[LA] usually takes the regular 2nd person singular

endings.

10.4.1

10.4

(^1111) 10.3.2
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1011

1

12111

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

20111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

30111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

40

41111

Preterite

tense

115

The imperfect tense – general features

1 The 1st and 3rd person singular forms of the imperfect tense are

always identical.

2 Except in the cases of ser and ir, the stress in the imperfect is

always on the first vowel of the ending.