Avatar: Frecuencia
Let's review how frequently we do some of the activities we're talking about in this unit. Listen as Roberta reviews some key vocabulary and then listen to Ryan use the imperfect tense as he remembers his childhood. When you finish, be sure and scroll down for a review of the imperfect.
Select the play button to begin the avatar video, and then use the navigation buttons to pause/stop, continue, or reset the avatar. View the presentation as often as you would like, and take notes as you follow along. Be sure to set your volume at a reasonable level before you begin.
El imperfecto: Hablar de tu pasado
You already saw the imperfect at length in Section A. Let's do a quick review of el imperfecto.
The imperfect describes actions that were going on in the past or that used to go on. We use this tense to talk about what we "were doing" or what we "used to do".
The imperfect will also talk about things that happened a repeated number of times in the past.
Ejemplo:
Cuando era niña, me gustaba trepar a los árboles.
The two verbs in bold face print are both in el imperfecto, because they describe something that the person used to like. It is translated as: When I was a girl, I used to like to climb trees.
However, you'll remember that when you talk about something that happened one time, it's different. You use el pretérito.
Ejemplo:
El otro día, vi un robo. Un hombre entró en una tienda y salió con dos bolsas de dinero.
In this example, the three verbs are in el pretérito because they talk about something that happened at a determined time. It is translated as: The other day I saw a robbery. A man entered a store and left with two bags of money.
Refresh your memory on how to conjugate verbs in the imperfect with the chart below:
Nadar (AR verb pattern) |
Comer (ER / IR verb pattern) |
||
yo nadaba |
nosotros nadábamos |
yo comía |
nosotros comíamos |
tú nadabas |
vosotros nadabáis |
tú comías |
vosotros comíais |
él, ella, Ud. nadaba |
ellos, ellas, Uds. nadaban |
él, ella, Ud. comía |
ellos, ellas, Uds. comían |
Notice that the ER and IR verbs will have accent marks on all of their forms. Only the nosotros will have an accent mark on the AR verb forms.
Remember, there are only three irregular verbs in the imperfect. See their forms here:era |
|
éramos |
|
iba |
|
íbamos |
|
veía |
|
veíamos |
eras |
erais |
|
ibas |
ibais |
|
veías |
veíais |
|||
era |
eran |
|
iba |
iban |
|
veía |
veían |
