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Trey t 47a7871c38 Add 13 new grammar notes with 1010 exercises from video extraction

Scraped a 4h Spanish fundamentals YouTube video (transcript + OCR on
14810 frames), extracted structured content across 52 chapters, and
generated fill-in-the-blank quizzes for every grammar topic.

- 13 new GrammarNote entries (articles, possessives, demonstratives,
  greetings, poder, al/del, prepositional pronouns, irregular yo,
  stem-changing, stressed possessives, present/future perfect, present
  indicative conjugation)
- 1010 generated exercises across all 36 grammar notes (new + existing)
- Fix tense guide parser to handle unnumbered *Usages* blocks
- Rewrite 6 broken tense guide bodies (imperative, subj pluperfect,
  subj future) with numbered usage format
- Bump courseDataVersion 5→6 with TenseGuide refresh on upgrade
- Add docs/spanish-fundamentals/ with raw transcripts, polished notes,
  structured JSON, and exercise data

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-04-16 08:40:05 -05:00

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31. Imperfect Tense

Source: A Complete Guide To Every Fundamental In Spanish (The Conclusion)

The Spanish imperfect (pretérito imperfecto) describes actions that used to happen or were happening in the past — habits, ongoing background actions, descriptions, and traits. It is the simplest tense to memorize: only two endings (-ar vs. -er/-ir) and only three irregular verbs (ser, ir, ver).

Key Rules

Two endings only: one for -ar verbs, one shared by -er and -ir verbs.
No stem changes, no irregular yo, no spelling-change exceptions.
Only three irregular verbs: ser → era, ir → iba, ver → veía.
Use it for: habits ("used to"), ongoing background actions ("was -ing"), descriptions, ages, time, and weather in the past.
Don't confuse with the preterite: preterite = something happened (one specific time); imperfect = used to happen / was happening / ongoing trait.
For "was/were doing X" you can also say estar (imperfect) + gerund: yo estaba hablando = yo hablaba.

Conjugation / Pattern Tables

Regular -ar verbs (hablar)

Subject	Form
yo	hablaba
tú	hablabas
él/ella	hablaba
nosotros	hablábamos
vosotros	hablabais
ellos	hablaban

Regular -er / -ir verbs (comer, vivir)

Subject	comer	vivir
yo	comía	vivía
tú	comías	vivías
él/ella	comía	vivía
nosotros	comíamos	vivíamos
vosotros	comíais	vivíais
ellos	comían	vivían

Irregular: ser, ir, ver

Subject	ser	ir	ver
yo	era	iba	veía
tú	eras	ibas	veías
él/ella	era	iba	veía
nosotros	éramos	íbamos	veíamos
vosotros	erais	ibais	veíais
ellos	eran	iban	veían

Examples

Spanish	English
Yo hablaba español.	I used to speak Spanish / I was speaking Spanish.
Tú caminabas cada día.	You used to walk every day.
Él comía por las mañanas.	He used to eat in the mornings.
Nosotros vivíamos en Madrid.	We used to live in Madrid.
Yo iba a la escuela.	I used to go to school.
Yo era estudiante.	I used to be a student.
Él era rápido.	He used to be fast.
Yo veía la televisión.	I used to watch TV.
Yo estaba hablando.	I was speaking.
Tú estabas muy feliz.	You were very happy.
Eran las tres de la tarde.	It was 3 in the afternoon.
Hacía frío.	It was cold (out).

Notes & Gotchas

Yo fui bonito (preterite) implies "I was pretty at a specific moment" — sounds odd. Use Yo era bonito for the past trait.
Past progressive uses the imperfect of estar, never the preterite: Yo estaba hablando ✓ / Yo estuve hablando ✗ for "I was speaking" as a continuous background action.
Ir has no gerund form ("going" = yendo, but standard is just iba).
Watch the accents: hablábamos, comíamos, vivíamos, éramos, íbamos, veíamos.

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