Verbs – The Imperfect Tense – regular and irregular verbs

Summary of contents – Lesson 6

1-     When the imperfect tense is used, how it differs from the past simple (preterite), tense and comparing how Spanish sentences using the imperfect tense may be constructed in English.

2-     Using the imperfect tense in conjunction with other tenses.

3-     Looking at how AR / ER and IR regular verbs are formed in the imperfect tense.

4-     Looking at how AR / ER and IR irregular verbs are formed in the imperfect tense (ir – to go / ser – to be / ver – to see) .

5-     How the verb ‘ir’ can be used with the imperfect tense to mean ‘was / were going to’.

Aims of the lesson

1-     To understand in what types of situations the imperfect tense might be used in every day speech and when it may be used in conjunction with other tenses.

2-     Appreciating how in some situations other tenses may be used in place of the imperfect tense.

3-     To appreciate how some types of sentences in English using ‘used to’ can be directly translated using the imperfect tense.

4-     Knowing how the imperfect tense is formed with verbs and knowing which small number of verbs take irregular forms.

5-     Knowing how to formulate the verb ‘ir’ with ‘a’ to talk about things in the past that were going to happen.