Imperfetto: Regular -are Verbs | Italian Grammar

The imperfetto is the past tense Italians reach for whenever they describe a scene rather than a single completed event — what was going on, what people used to do, what the world was like. It is one of the easiest Italian tenses to form (the regular endings are almost identical across all three conjugations) and one of the hardest for English speakers to use correctly, because English buries the same idea under three different constructions: simple past ("I worked"), past progressive ("I was working"), and "used to / would" ("I used to work / I would work"). All three map onto the imperfetto.

This page covers regular -are verbs. The model verb is parlare (to speak), and what you learn here will carry you straight through lavorare, mangiare, studiare, abitare, amare, guardare, ascoltare, aspettare, comprare, arrivare — and the rest of the largest verb class in Italian.

How it works

To form the imperfetto of a regular -are verb, drop the -are ending from the infinitive to get the stem, then add the imperfetto endings. These endings are built from two pieces: the theme vowel -a- (which marks this as a first-conjugation verb), the imperfetto marker -v-, and the person ending.

The six endings are:

Person	Ending
io	-avo
tu	-avi
lui / lei / Lei	-ava
noi	-avamo
voi	-avate
loro	-avano

Notice the structure: every ending begins with -av- (theme vowel + imperfetto marker), and the personal endings (-o, -i, -a, -mo, -te, -no) are the same family of person markers you see across many tenses. Once you internalize the -av- core, the system clicks.

Parlare — the model verb

Take parlare, drop the -are to get the stem parl-, then add each ending. The bold marks are training aids for stress placement; do not write them in normal Italian.

Person	Conjugation	Stress
io	parlavo	parlàvo
tu	parlavi	parlàvi
lui / lei / Lei	parlava	parlàva
noi	parlavamo	parlavàmo
voi	parlavate	parlavàte
loro	parlavano	parlàvano

Parlavo al telefono quando è suonato il campanello.

I was talking on the phone when the doorbell rang.

Da bambino parlavi sempre con il tuo orsacchiotto, te lo ricordi?

As a kid you always used to talk to your teddy bear, do you remember?

Mio nonno parlava quattro lingue, ma a casa solo dialetto.

My grandfather spoke four languages, but at home only dialect.

Parlavamo di te proprio ieri sera.

We were talking about you just last night.

I miei colleghi parlavano sempre di calcio in pausa pranzo.

My colleagues used to always talk about soccer at lunch break.

The stress trap in the loro form

In the loro form, the stress falls on the root of the verb, not on the ending. So parlàvano, with stress on the second syllable, not parlavàno with stress on the third. This is the most-revealing pronunciation error English speakers make: their natural instinct is to stress the penultimate syllable of every word, which puts the accent on the wrong place.

The pattern across the whole conjugation: the singular forms (io, tu, lui) and the loro form share their stress on the -av- core (parlàvo, parlàvi, parlàva, parlàvano), while the noi and voi forms shift one syllable to the right (parlavàmo, parlavàte). Once you hear this rhythm — daa-DAA-vo, daa-DAA-vi, daa-DAA-va, daa-da-VAH-mo, daa-da-VAH-te, daa-DAA-vano — your -are imperfetto will sound right.

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The loro form parlavano is stressed parlàvano, not parlavàno. Italian speakers can hear this mistake from a hundred meters away. Drill it aloud: parl-à-va-no, three syllables of falling stress.

Ten high-frequency -are verbs in the imperfetto

These all conjugate exactly like parlare.

Infinitive	Meaning	io form	noi form	loro form
lavorare	to work	lavoravo	lavoravamo	lavoravano
studiare	to study	studiavo	studiavamo	studiavano
mangiare	to eat	mangiavo	mangiavamo	mangiavano
abitare	to live (reside)	abitavo	abitavamo	abitavano
giocare	to play	giocavo	giocavamo	giocavano
guardare	to watch	guardavo	guardavamo	guardavano
ascoltare	to listen	ascoltavo	ascoltavamo	ascoltavano
aspettare	to wait for	aspettavo	aspettavamo	aspettavano
amare	to love	amavo	amavamo	amavano
andare	to go (irreg. presente, regular here)	andavo	andavamo	andavano

Note that andare, which is famously irregular in the presente (vado, vai, va...), is completely regular in the imperfetto: andavo, andavi, andava, andavamo, andavate, andavano. This is the rule rather than the exception — the imperfetto is one of the most regular tenses in Italian, and many verbs that are irregular elsewhere fall into line here.

Da bambino, ogni estate andavamo al mare in Liguria.

As a kid, every summer we used to go to the seaside in Liguria.

Mia nonna preparava la pasta a mano e io giocavo con mio fratello in cortile.

My grandmother used to make pasta by hand and I would play with my brother in the courtyard.

Studiavo medicina ma poi ho cambiato facoltà.

I was studying medicine but then I changed faculties.

Aspettavamo l'autobus quando ha cominciato a piovere.

We were waiting for the bus when it started to rain.

I miei genitori lavoravano tutti e due, quindi mia nonna mi guardava il pomeriggio.

My parents both worked, so my grandmother used to look after me in the afternoon.

What the imperfetto really means

Here is where English speakers most need to slow down. The imperfetto is a descriptive tense. It paints a scene, sets a backdrop, describes what was true over a stretch of time — without committing to when (or whether) the action ended. Compare this to the passato prossimo (ho parlato, ho mangiato, ho studiato), which presents an action as a single completed event with a beginning and an end.

The same Italian verb form maps to three different English constructions, depending on context:

Italian	English equivalent	Meaning type
Parlavo italiano da bambino.	I used to speak Italian as a child.	Habitual past
Parlavo al telefono quando è arrivato.	I was speaking on the phone when he arrived.	Ongoing past (background)
Mio nonno parlava sempre con tutti.	My grandfather would always talk to everyone.	Habitual / characteristic
La casa era grande, parlava di un'altra epoca.	The house was big, it spoke of another era.	Description / state

Mentre studiavo, mangiavo.

While I was studying, I was eating. (two ongoing actions in parallel)

Ieri ho studiato due ore.

Yesterday I studied for two hours. (one completed event)

The first sentence uses two imperfetti because both actions are presented as ongoing, with no defined endpoint. The second uses passato prossimo because the studying is presented as a closed package: it started, lasted two hours, and ended. Even though "two hours" is a long stretch, the speaker is treating it as a single completed unit.

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The choice between imperfetto and passato prossimo is not about how long the action lasted. It is about whether you are presenting it as a completed event (passato prossimo) or as a scene / state / habit (imperfetto). Even a one-second action can be imperfetto if it's described as ongoing ("piangeva" — he was crying), and a multi-year action can be passato prossimo if it's framed as completed ("ho vissuto a Roma per dieci anni").

Why English speakers under-use the imperfetto

Here is the single most important insight on this page. The English equivalents "used to" and "would" feel emphatic to English speakers — they are reserved for cases where you specifically want to highlight the habitual nature of a past action. Most of the time, English just uses the simple past ("I worked," "I went," "I lived") for both completed events and habits, leaving context to disambiguate.

Italian does not work that way. In Italian, the simple past for habits and ongoing scenes is the imperfetto — there is no neutral default that does both jobs. If you describe your childhood and use passato prossimo throughout (ho giocato, ho studiato, ho mangiato), you are saying that each action happened once, as a single event. To Italian ears this is wrong, or at best very strange, because childhood is a scene, not a sequence of completed events.

So the practical rule: whenever you would say "used to" or "would" in English, use the imperfetto in Italian — and use it more often than the English translation would suggest. If the action describes a routine, a state, a habit, the way things were — reach for the imperfetto.

Da bambino, ogni estate andavamo al mare. Mia nonna preparava la pasta a mano e io giocavo con mio fratello fino a sera. Era un'altra vita.

As a kid, every summer we used to go to the seaside. My grandmother would make pasta by hand and I would play with my brother until evening. It was another life.

Notice that this paragraph contains five verbs in the imperfetto and zero in the passato prossimo. An English speaker writing the same paragraph in English might use "we went, my grandmother made, I played, it was" — five simple pasts. The reflex to translate "we went" with siamo andati (passato prossimo) is the single biggest source of imperfetto-related errors.

Imperfetto with weather, time, and age

Three high-frequency uses of the imperfetto deserve their own mention because they trip up English speakers consistently:

Weather in the past is almost always imperfetto, because weather is a scene:

Pioveva e faceva freddo, quindi siamo rimasti a casa.

It was raining and cold, so we stayed home.

Telling what time it was in a past narration uses imperfetto with essere (covered on its own page):

Erano le tre del mattino quando sono tornato.

It was three in the morning when I got home.

Stating someone's age in the past uses imperfetto with avere:

Avevo dieci anni quando mio padre mi ha regalato la prima bicicletta.

I was ten when my father gave me my first bicycle.

In all three cases the imperfetto sets the backdrop, and a passato prossimo verb (è suonato, sono rimasti, sono tornato, ha regalato) provides the completed event that happens against that backdrop. This imperfetto-as-scene + passato prossimo-as-event structure is the spine of Italian past-tense narration.

Common mistakes

❌ I miei genitori parlavàno sempre di lavoro.

Incorrect — wrong stress on the loro form. The accent should be on the root, not on the -và-no.

✅ I miei genitori parlàvano sempre di lavoro.

Correct — parlàvano stresses the second syllable.

❌ Da bambino ho giocato sempre con mio fratello.

Incorrect — habitual past actions take the imperfetto, not the passato prossimo. This sounds like 'I played once with my brother.'

✅ Da bambino giocavo sempre con mio fratello.

Correct — recurring childhood actions take the imperfetto.

❌ Mentre ho mangiato, ho guardato la televisione.

Incorrect — two parallel ongoing actions both take the imperfetto.

✅ Mentre mangiavo, guardavo la televisione.

Correct — both actions are ongoing, both are imperfetto.

❌ Ieri pioveva tutto il giorno, sono rimasto a casa.

Borderline — 'tutto il giorno' frames the rain as a bounded event, so passato prossimo is more natural here.

✅ Ieri è piovuto tutto il giorno, sono rimasto a casa.

Correct — 'tutto il giorno' bounds the duration, making passato prossimo the better choice.

❌ Loro parlavono italiano.

Incorrect — the loro ending is -avano, not -avono. (Don't confuse with -ere or -ire imperfetto endings.)

✅ Loro parlavano italiano.

Correct — -are verbs take -avano in the loro form.

❌ Quando avevo cinque anni, sono andato a scuola ogni giorno.

Incorrect for habitual past — 'ogni giorno' marks repetition, which takes the imperfetto.

✅ Quando avevo cinque anni, andavo a scuola ogni giorno.

Correct — daily repetition is imperfetto.

Key takeaways

The regular -are imperfetto endings are -avo, -avi, -ava, -avamo, -avate, -avano. Add them to the stem (infinitive minus -are) and you have any regular -are verb in the imperfetto.

Three things to internalize:

The loro form is rizotonic — stress on the root, not on the ending. Parlàvano, never parlavàno.
The imperfetto is a scene, not an event. Use it for habits, ongoing actions, descriptions, weather, age, time, and anything that sets a backdrop. The passato prossimo is for closed, completed events.
English speakers under-use the imperfetto. Whenever you would say "used to" or "would" in English — and often even when you wouldn't — Italian wants the imperfetto. If in doubt, when describing childhood, routines, or how things were, default to imperfetto.

Once -are is solid, the regular -ere imperfetto is almost identical — just swap the theme vowel from -a- to -e-. Then regular -ire (with the disappearing -isc-), and the two essential irregulars: essere and avere.

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