The imperfect tense, in the classical grammar of several Indo-European languages, denotes a past tense with an imperfective aspect. In English, it is referred to as the past continuous tense. For other uses, see Indo-European. ... The past tense is a verb tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past. ... The imperfective aspect, sometimes known as the continuous or progressive aspect, is a grammatical aspect. ... Past continuous is used to describe actions and states continued in the past period of time. ...

The term originated with the Hebrew language because "imperfect" refers to an uncompleted or abandoned action. The word Hebrew most likely means to cross over, referring to the Semitic people crossing over the Euphrates River. ...

Imperfect in Indo-European languages

English

In English, the imperfect or past continuous tense is manifested in the verb phrases: The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Past continuous is used to describe actions and states continued in the past period of time. ...

• "I was eating..."
• "I used to eat..."
• "I would eat..."

"eating" and "eat" are present verb tenses, but the action is made to happen in the past. Contrast to "I ate...", which uses the past tense of the verb.

Note that "Back then, I would eat early, and would walk to school..." signifies not the conditional, but rather, past actions of imperfect tense in English,^[1] but one must use care when translating to other languages.

In modern linguistics, and especially in TEFL contexts, it is more usual to refer to this as the "past continuous" or the "past progressive" tense. TEFL – Teaching English as a Foreign Language – is an industry catering for students studying English in non-English speaking countries (see EFL). ...

Latin

Conjugation of the imperfect indicative:

Notes:

• The imperfect tense is signified by the signs ba and bā.
• The imperfect tense forms of esse are used as auxiliary verbs in the pluperfect tense of the passive voice along with perfect passive participles.

Romance languages

In Romance languages, the imperfect is generally a past tense. Its uses include representing: The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family, comprising all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ...

• An action that was happening, used to happen, or happened regularly in the past and on going
• People, things, or conditions of the past
• A time in the past
• A situation that was in progress in the past when another isolated and important event occurred (the former using the imperfect, while the latter uses the preterite).
• A physical or mental state or condition in progress in the past. Often used with verbs of being, emotion, capability, or conscience. The following verbs are often used in the imperfect in several Romance languages:

English equivalent	French	Spanish	Italian	Portuguese
to love	aimer	amar	amare	amar
to desire	désirer	desear	desiderare	desejar
to want	vouloir	querer	volere	querer
to prefer	préférer	preferir	preferire	preferir
to hope	éspérer	esperar	sperare	esperar
to feel	sentir	sentir	sentire	sentir
to regret/lament	regretter	lamentar	rimpiangere	lamentar
to be	être	ser/estar	essere	ser/estar
to be able to	pouvoir	poder	potere	poder
to know (a person)	connaître	conocer	conoscere	conhecer
to know (a thing)	savoir	saber	sapere	saber
to believe	croire	creer	credere	crer
to think	penser	pensar	pensare	pensar
to imagine	imaginer	imaginar	immaginare	imaginar
to stand/stay	rester	quedar	stare	ficar

A common mistake of beginners learning a Romance language is putting too much emphasis on whether the time the action occurred is known. This generally does not affect how the imperfect tense is used. For example the sentence "Someone ate all my cookies." (when translated) is not a good candidate for the imperfect. Fundamentally, it is no different to the sentence "We ate all the cookies." On the other hand, "I used to have fun in the 1960s." is a good candidate for the imperfect, even though its time frame is known. In short, knowing when an action occurred is not nearly as important as how long it occurred (or was and still is occurring). The preterite (also praeterite, in American English also preterit, or past historic) is the grammatical tense expressing actions which took place in the past. ...

French

In order to form the imperfect tense for French regular verbs, take the present tense "nous " (we) form, subtract the -ons ending, and add the following:

Examples:

Notes:

• Verbs that terminate in a stem of -cer and -ger undergo minor orthographic changes to preserve the phonetic sound or allophone. Verbs whose root terminates in the letter "i" maintain the letter despite the consecutiveness in the "nous" and "vous" forms.

Italian

Conjugation of the imperfect indicative:

Notes:

• Verbs are formed by dropping the -re suffix and adding -vo, -vi, -va, -vamo, -vate, and -vano.
• There is only one irregular verb in the imperfect tense: essere.
• Although dire and opporre may seem irregular, they are a part of a verb family that has stronger roots to Latin equivalents. Other verbs include fare, bere, and ridurre.
• There is another imperfect tense in Italian formed by combining the imperfect of the verb stare (stavo, stavi, stava, stavamo, stavate, stavano) with the gerund. For example, "parlavo" could be said as "stavo parlando". The difference is similar to the difference between "I eat" and "I am eating" in English. However, English does not make this distinction in the imperfect tense.

Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...

Spanish

Conjugation of the imperfect indicative:

• There are only three irregular verbs in the imperfect tense: ir, ser, and ver. Ir is irregular because it follows its own unique structure, leaving the normal conjugation pattern to become "iba." Ser is irregular because the "er" ending of the verb becomes the stem when it becomes "era." Ver, which becomes veía, is irregular because it keeps the "e" from the "er" ending of the infinitive that is usually cut off when the verb is conjugated. The "a" endings are a normal part of the imperfect tense even for "er" and "ir" verbs.

• The yo and el/ella/usted forms are the same for verbs ending in ar, er, and ir; thus, in the cases of subjective ambiguity where context be insufficient, a pronoun or subjective noun is included for the sake of clarification.

Persian

Like all other past tenses, imperfect is conjugated regularly for all verbs. Formation: [preverb] + mi- + past stem + past ending

• Persian has separate tenses for past continuous and imperfect.
• In Persian the prefix mi gives imperfective aspect to the tense. For example, the mentioned imperfect tense has been built by prefixing mi to simple past. Therefore, it's possible to coin new imperfective tenses.

“Farsi” redirects here. ... “Farsi” redirects here. ...

Imperfect in Afro-Asiatic languages

Hebrew

Biblical Hebrew had only two aspects (not tenses). The perfect aspect was used for completed actions, and generally implies past time. The imperfect aspect was used for uncompleted actions, and thus could imply present or future time. Modern Hebrew uses the participle for the present time and reserves the imperfect for future time. The Hebrew imperfect is noteworthy for having not only suffixes but also a syllable added at the beginning of the stem, and thus is often called the prefix conjugation. Categories: Language stubs | Judaism-related stubs | Canaanite languages | Hebrew language ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... In-Silico Modeling and Conformational Mobility of String Pointer Reduction System (SPRS) Based on DNA Computers ...

Literary and Classical Arabic

Like Hebrew, Classical Arabic and thus Literary Arabic has two aspects, denoting completed and incompleted actions respectively. The perfect is marked with a suffix conjugation, the imperfect with a prefix conjugation. In addition, a number of particles and auxiliary verbs help enrich the verb system. It could be said, however, that the Arabic verb system is less precise, or in any case less complex, than that of e.g. Indo-European languages. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Literary Arabic ( the Eloquent Arabic language) or Standard Arabic is the literary and standard register of Classical Arabic used in writing. ... In linguistics, an auxiliary (also called helping verb, auxiliary verb, or verbal auxiliary) is a verb functioning to give further semantic or syntactic information about the main or full verb following it. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ...

Imperfect in Dravidian languages

Malayalam

In Malayalam (verbs are never conjugated for grammatical person, which is indicated by a pronoun), there are two indicative imperfect tenses, corresponding exactly with English: Malayalam (മലയാളം ) is the language spoken predominantly in the state of Kerala, in southern India. ... Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the addressee, and others. ...

1 -ഉകയായിരുന്നു (ukayāyirunnu) endings (... was...), for example:

ഓടുകയായിരുന്നു (ōṭukayāyirunnu) ... was running

2 -ഉമായിരുന്നു (umāyirunnu) endings (... used to ...), for example:

ഓടുമായിരുന്നു (ōṭumāyirunnu) ... used to run

• To form the "was doing" imperfect tense, take the infinitive ending in ഉക (uka), for example ഓടുക (ōṭuka) - to run - and add the ending - യായിരുന്നു (yāyirunnu).

• To form the "used to do" imperfect tense, take off the ക (ka) from the end of the "uka" form and add മായിരുന്നു (māyirunnu) in its stead.

To make a verb in the imperfect negative, add അല്ല് (all) after the ഉകയ (ukaya) part of the ending for the "was doing" imperfect tense. For example, ഓടുകയല്ലായിരുന്നു (ōṭukayallāyirunnu) (...was not running). To do the same for the "used to do" imperfect, take off the ഉമ (uma) from the ending and add അത്തില്ല (attilla) instead. For example, ഓടത്തില്ലായിരുന്നു (ōṭattillāyirunnu) (...didn't use to run)

References

1. ^ UltraLingua Online Dictionary, "Conditional tense".