Imperfetto Italian Imperfect Tense

â€Å"Every Sunday, when I was a kid, my nonna cooked us a big dinner.† How do you express that sentiment in Italian? It’s something that happened in the past, but since it was something that happened often, you wouldn’t use the present perfect, or il passato prossimo. In this and similar cases, which we’ll discuss throughout this article, you would use the imperfect tense. Lucky for you, this tense, l’imperfetto, is formed by adding the same endings to all three conjugations. The only difference is the typical vowel of the infinitive. What’s more, you should know that the imperfect tense is much more frequently used in Italian than in English. It expresses the English used to and is used to describe actions or conditions that lasted an indefinite time in the past. Its also used to express a habitual action in the past and to describe time, age, and weather in the past. So if you like telling stories, it’s a critical tense to learn. Adverbial Expressions That Are Commonly Used With the Imperfect Tense: a volte - at times, sometimescontinuamente - continuouslygiorno dopo giorno - day in and day outogni tanto - once in awhilesempre - alwaysspesso spesso - again and againtutti i giorni - every day How to Conjugate Regular Verbs in the Imperfect Tense Mangiare - To eat (regular verbs with -are endings) Mangiavo - I ate Mangiavamo - We ate Mangiavi - You ate Mangiavate - You (all) ate Mangiava - He/she/it ate Mangiavano - They ate Finire - To finish (regular verbs with -ire endings) Finivo - I finished Finivamo - We finished Finivi - You finished Finivate - You (all) finished Finiva - He/she/it finished Finivano - They finished Prendere - To take, to get (regular verbs with -ere endings) Prendevo - I took Prendevamo - We took Prendevi - You took Prendevate - You (all) took Prendeva - He/she/it took Prendevano - They took Using Common, Irregular Verbs Essere - To be Ero - I was Eravamo - We were Eri - You were Eravate - You (all) were Era - He/she/it was Erano - They were Fare - To do/to make Facevo - I did Facevamo - We did Facevi - You did Facevate - You (all) did Faceva - He/she/it did Facevano - They did Dire - To say, to tell Dicevo - I said Dicevamo - We said Dicevi - You said Dicevate - You (all) said Diceva - He/she/it said Dicevano - They said Examples Using L’imperfetto: Ogni domenica, quando ero un bambino/a, mia nonna ci preparava una splendida cena.  Every Sunday, when I was a kid, my nonna cooked us a big dinner.Giocavo a calcio ogni pomeriggio.  I played soccer every afternoon.Quando ero piccolo/a, mangiavo la pasta ogni giorno. When I was a kid, I ate pasta every day.La settimana scorsa, era (c’era) un tempo bellissimo!  Last week, it was really beautiful weather!Loro credevano sempre a tutto.  They always believed everything.Volevamo andare in Italia. We wanted to go to Italy.Il cielo era sempre blu.  The sky was always blue.Ogni mattina, prendevo un bel cappuccino e un cornetto vuoto. Every morning, I got a cappuccino and a plain croissant.Nel 2000, avevo quarant’anni.  In 2000, I was forty years old.Mi ricordo quello che diceva sempre mio padre: â€Å"Guarda il ceppo†!  I remember what my dad always used to say: â€Å"Take a look at the log†! (figurative the family)