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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>
68 lines
3.0 KiB
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68 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
# 31. Imperfect Tense
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> Source: [A Complete Guide To Every Fundamental In Spanish (The Conclusion)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=YHDZSHCt1DE&t=8311s)
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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).
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## Key Rules
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- Two endings only: one for **-ar** verbs, one shared by **-er** and **-ir** verbs.
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- No stem changes, no irregular yo, no spelling-change exceptions.
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- Only **three** irregular verbs: **ser → era**, **ir → iba**, **ver → veía**.
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- Use it for: habits ("used to"), ongoing background actions ("was -ing"), descriptions, ages, time, and weather in the past.
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- Don't confuse with the preterite: preterite = something happened (one specific time); imperfect = used to happen / was happening / ongoing trait.
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- For "was/were doing X" you can also say *estar* (imperfect) + gerund: *yo estaba hablando* = *yo hablaba*.
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## Conjugation / Pattern Tables
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### Regular -ar verbs (hablar)
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| Subject | Form |
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|---|---|
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| yo | hablaba |
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| tú | hablabas |
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| él/ella | hablaba |
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| nosotros | hablábamos |
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| vosotros | hablabais |
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| ellos | hablaban |
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### Regular -er / -ir verbs (comer, vivir)
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| Subject | comer | vivir |
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|---|---|---|
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| yo | comía | vivía |
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| tú | comías | vivías |
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| él/ella | comía | vivía |
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| nosotros | comíamos | vivíamos |
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| vosotros | comíais | vivíais |
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| ellos | comían | vivían |
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### Irregular: ser, ir, ver
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| Subject | ser | ir | ver |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| yo | era | iba | veía |
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| tú | eras | ibas | veías |
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| él/ella | era | iba | veía |
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| nosotros | éramos | íbamos | veíamos |
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| vosotros | erais | ibais | veíais |
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| ellos | eran | iban | veían |
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## Examples
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| Spanish | English |
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|---|---|
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| Yo hablaba español. | I used to speak Spanish / I was speaking Spanish. |
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| Tú caminabas cada día. | You used to walk every day. |
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| Él comía por las mañanas. | He used to eat in the mornings. |
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| Nosotros vivíamos en Madrid. | We used to live in Madrid. |
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| Yo iba a la escuela. | I used to go to school. |
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| Yo era estudiante. | I used to be a student. |
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| Él era rápido. | He used to be fast. |
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| Yo veía la televisión. | I used to watch TV. |
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| Yo estaba hablando. | I was speaking. |
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| Tú estabas muy feliz. | You were very happy. |
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| Eran las tres de la tarde. | It was 3 in the afternoon. |
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| Hacía frío. | It was cold (out). |
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## Notes & Gotchas
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- *Yo fui bonito* (preterite) implies "I was pretty at a specific moment" — sounds odd. Use *Yo era bonito* for the past trait.
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- **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.
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- *Ir* has no gerund form ("going" = yendo, but standard is just *iba*).
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- Watch the accents: hablábamos, comíamos, vivíamos, éramos, íbamos, veíamos.
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