The imperfect past tense (l’imperfetto), sometimes called the descriptive past, is generally used to convey actions in progress in the past. It can have a number of English equivalents:
To form l’imperfetto, you add an appropriate ending to the verb stem. The following table gives the complete conjugations of regular verbs in -are, -ere, and -ire. The endings added to the stem are in bold.
| io cantavo | --> | I was singing I used to sing I sang I did sing I would sing |
To form l’imperfetto, you add an appropriate ending to the verb stem. The following table gives the complete conjugations of regular verbs in -are, -ere, and -ire. The endings added to the stem are in bold.