Pretérito Imperfeito Overview | Portuguese (Portugal) Grammar

The pretérito imperfeito is the other essential past tense in Portuguese. If the preterite answers What happened?, the imperfect answers What was happening? and What used to happen? It paints the background of a story -- the weather, the mood, the habits, the scene in which completed events take place. Without it, narration feels like a bare list of facts.

What the imperfect expresses

The imperfect covers past situations that are ongoing, habitual, or descriptive. It does not move the plot forward the way the preterite does. Instead, it sets the stage.

Habitual past -- "used to"

Actions that happened regularly or repeatedly over an unspecified period in the past.

Quando era criança, brincava no jardim todos os dias.

When I was a child, I used to play in the garden every day.

Antigamente, jantávamos sempre às oito.

In the old days, we always had dinner at eight.

Background and scene-setting

Descriptions of what the world looked like at a given moment in the past -- weather, atmosphere, appearance, emotions.

Estava sol e fazia calor.

It was sunny and it was hot.

A casa era grande e tinha um jardim bonito.

The house was big and had a beautiful garden.

Ongoing action interrupted by a completed one

The imperfect provides the ongoing backdrop; the preterite delivers the interruption.

Eu dormia quando o telefone tocou.

I was sleeping when the phone rang.

Polite requests

In European Portuguese, using the imperfect of querer (to want) or poder (can) softens a request -- much like English "I would like" instead of "I want."

Queria um café, por favor.

I'd like a coffee, please.

Podia dizer-me as horas?

Could you tell me the time?

💡

Using queria instead of quero for requests is extremely common in European Portuguese. You will hear it in every cafe, shop, and restaurant. It sounds natural and polite -- not overly formal.

Formation overview

The imperfect is one of the most regular tenses in Portuguese. Remove the infinitive ending (-ar, -er, -ir) and add the imperfect endings. Here are the three classes with full conjugations:

	-ar (falar)	-er (comer)	-ir (partir)
eu	falava	comia	partia
tu	falavas	comias	partias
ele / ela / você	falava	comia	partia
nós	falávamos	comíamos	partíamos
eles / elas / vocês	falavam	comiam	partiam

Here are the endings alone, stripped from the verb stems:

	-ar	-er	-ir
eu	-ava	-ia	-ia
tu	-avas	-ias	-ias
ele / você	-ava	-ia	-ia
nós	-ávamos	-íamos	-íamos
eles / vocês	-avam	-iam	-iam

Notice that -er and -ir verbs share identical endings in the imperfect. Only -ar verbs have a distinct set. This means you only need to learn two patterns, not three. Also notice that the eu and ele/você forms are always the same -- context tells you who the subject is.

💡

The accent on falávamos and comíamos/partíamos is mandatory. Without it, the stress would fall on the wrong syllable and the word would sound (and be) incorrect. These are the only forms in the imperfect that carry a written accent.

Only four irregular verbs

This is the best news about the imperfect: in the entire language, only four verbs are irregular. Every other verb -- no matter how wildly irregular it is in the present or preterite -- is perfectly regular in the imperfect.

	ser (to be)	ter (to have)	vir (to come)	pôr (to put)
eu	era	tinha	vinha	punha
tu	eras	tinhas	vinhas	punhas
ele / você	era	tinha	vinha	punha
nós	éramos	tínhamos	vínhamos	púnhamos
eles / vocês	eram	tinham	vinham	punham

Verbs like fazer, poder, dizer, and ir -- all notoriously irregular elsewhere -- are completely regular in the imperfect: fazia, podia, dizia, ia. See Irregular: ser and Irregular: ter for dedicated pages on the most important two.

Quando eu era jovem, não havia tantos carros.

When I was young, there weren't so many cars.

Imperfect vs preterite -- a quick comparison

Understanding when to use the imperfect versus the preterite is one of the core challenges of Portuguese past tenses. Here is the essential distinction:

Preterite = what happened. Completed, bounded, moves the story forward.
Imperfect = what was happening / what used to happen. Background, scene, habit, ongoing state.

Chovia quando saí de casa.

It was raining when I left the house.

In this sentence, chovia (imperfect) describes the ongoing weather -- the background. Saí (preterite) is the completed event -- what actually happened. The two tenses work together: the imperfect sets the scene, the preterite delivers the action.

A Ana lia um livro quando o Pedro chegou.

Ana was reading a book when Pedro arrived.

Time expressions that signal the imperfect

Certain words and phrases are strong cues that the imperfect is the right tense:

Portuguese	English
antigamente	in the old days
normalmente	normally
sempre	always
muitas vezes	often / many times
quando era criança	when I was a child
naquela época	at that time
todos os dias	every day
geralmente	generally

These expressions point to repetition, habit, or an undefined time frame -- all hallmarks of the imperfect.

What comes next

This page gave you the big picture of the pretérito imperfeito -- what it expresses, how it is formed, and why it has so few irregulars. From here, dive into the conjugation details: -ar verbs and -er/-ir verbs. Then explore the irregular verbs: ser and ter. For the critical contrast between the two past tenses, see Preterite Overview, and for where the imperfect fits in the full tense system, see Tenses at a Glance.