Imperfetto means “imperfect”, not finished. It’s an Italian past tense. A complete guide, quiz and audio examples

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Imperfetto “non perfetto”, is an important Italian past tense. It’s part of the indicativo mood, a group of tenses that describe real facts, objects, events.

The imperfetto describes a situation or a frequent action in the past. It always needs a context in order to make sense, as it is incomplete (imperfect!) by itself. For example, if you simply say to an Italian speaker …

• Ero stanco.

… he or she will wait for you to put it in context, in the past, and ask “Quando”?

• Ieri ero stanco.

It means that yesterday I was tired. It’s a situation in the past.

The imperfetto is often studied with the passato prossimo, a perfect past tense, which instead describes complete actions.

•  Ieri ho lavorato.

Let’s see a complete overview of the imperfetto

to be, to have and regular verbs.

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• -are –>   Quando ero in vacanza, mangiavo il gelato tutti i giorni
• -ere –>   All’università, leggevo tanti libri
• -ire –>    Qualche anno fa, non capivo l’italiano

You can use the imperfetto with…

Two actions happening simultaneously in the past

• Mentre cucinavo, Laura preparava il tavolo.

In this case, the two actions are not complete, they were happening at the same time.

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A past ongoing action/situation interrupted by a complete action

• Mentre facevo la doccia, Luigi ha telefonato.

Here we have an ongoing action / situation (fare la doccia – imperfetto) interrupted by an action (telefonare), which began and finished (passato prossimo).

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A frequent action or condition in the past

• Quando ero studente, andavo spesso ai concerti.

The time of the frequent action is not well defined. So it is the situation. I was a student.

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A condition with no connections with the present

• Da bambino, ero molto magro.

This is a classic example of imperfetto. When I was a child… This time and the condition (ero magro, I was skinny) have no connections with the present.

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A routine in the past

• Lo scorso inverno, guadavo la televisione tutti i giorni.

Here I describe a recurrent action in a generic past (lo scorso inverno) so the imperfetto emphasizes the repetition of the routine.

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An action in the near past

• Oggi avevo una una lezione di inglese.

This is a rare case, I can use the imperfetto for describing a complete action. I can to do that, because this action is part of my routine, I usually have English classes.

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Quoting someone about a past, present or future action

• Franco ha detto che andava in vacanza in Spagna

This last case is quite common in spoken Italian. The imperfetto here replaces the condizionale passato, which is used to define the “future in the past”. (Franco ha detto che sarebbe andato in vacanza in Spagna).

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