The Imperfetto

📌 Nota grammaticale

The imperfetto (imperfect tense) is used in Italian to describe ongoing, habitual, or repeated actions in the past, as well as physical and mental states, weather, and time. It is equivalent to 'used to', 'would', or the English past continuous ('was/were -ing').

📌 Nota grammaticale

To conjugate regular -are verbs in the imperfetto, drop the -are from the infinitive and add the endings: -avo, -avi, -ava, -avamo, -avate, -avano. Note that the first-person singular ends in -avo.

📌 Nota grammaticale

To conjugate regular -ere verbs, drop the -ere from the infinitive and add the endings: -evo, -evi, -eva, -evamo, -evate, -evano. All persons share the 'ev-' stem characteristic of this group.

📌 Nota grammaticale

To conjugate regular -ire verbs, drop the -ire and add the endings: -ivo, -ivi, -iva, -ivamo, -ivate, -ivano. Unlike the present tense, -ire verbs in the imperfetto do not insert the '-isc-' infix.

📌 Nota grammaticale

The verb 'essere' is irregular in the imperfetto. Its stem changes to 'er-', yielding: ero, eri, era, eravamo, eravate, erano. It is frequently used for age, time, and descriptions in the past.

📌 Nota grammaticale

Although 'avere' is an -ere verb, it maintains a slightly contracted historical stem in the imperfetto: avevo, avevi, aveva, avevamo, avevate, avevano. Note the absence of the 'e' from the typical -ere stem before the ending.

📌 Nota grammaticale

Verbs with contracted Latin-derived infinitives like bere (bev-) and dire (dic-) use their historical roots before adding the standard -ere/-are endings. Bere becomes bevevo; dire becomes dicevo; tradurre becomes traducevo.

📌 Nota grammaticale

The imperfetto is the primary tense for expressing repeated, habitual actions in the past, often translated as 'used to' or 'would' in English. Signal words include sempre (always), spesso (often), ogni tanto (every now and then), and da piccolo (when little).

📌 Nota grammaticale

Descriptions of atmospheric conditions, time of day, seasons, physical appearance, and age in the past always require the imperfetto because these act as the background setting rather than completed events.

📌 Nota grammaticale

When two ongoing actions occur simultaneously in the past, the conjunction mentre (while) is typically followed by two verbs in the imperfetto. Neither action has a defined beginning or end.

📌 Nota grammaticale

A very common narrative pattern uses the imperfetto to describe an ongoing background state or action, which is suddenly interrupted by a single, completed event expressed in the passato prossimo, often joined by quando (when).

📌 Nota grammaticale

Verbs expressing internal states, emotions, thoughts, or intentions—such as volere (to want), sapere (to know), pensare (to think), credere (to believe), and volere—are almost always expressed in the imperfetto when describing past feelings without a specific starting point.