The Imperfect Tense in Italian

Or the tense that lets you sweetly reminisce on the old days

According to La Bella Lingua, the imperfect tense is “the most Italian of the tenses for unfinished business.”

It’s the tense you use to describe how you and your friends used to go to the mall every Saturday morning dressed di tutto punto (to the nines) to impress every person who might see you.

The tense you use when you say, “Well, when I was 8, we used to…”

Or in a more practical tense, you can l’imperfetto (the imperfect) to describe:

• Weather in the past (e.g. windy, rainy, etc.)

• A specific time in the past (e.g. 7 AM)

• How someone was feeling or thinking (e.g. worried, happy, sad, etc.)

• An action that someone was doing while another action had been completed or was still happening (e.g. eating while she left)

And lucky for you (& me!) all of the endings for -are, -ere, and -ire verbs ARE THE SAME!

This is a rare moment where I’m happy about conformity.