Imperfect: Regular -ar Verbs | Portuguese (Portugal) Grammar

The imperfect (pretérito imperfeito) of -ar verbs follows a single, completely predictable pattern. Better still, there are no exceptions -- every -ar verb in the language is regular in this tense. Remove -ar from the infinitive, add the endings below, and you are done.

The endings

The model verb is falar (to speak). Its stem is fal-. Add the following endings:

Person	Ending	falar	English
eu	-ava	falava	I spoke / used to speak
tu	-avas	falavas	you spoke / used to speak
ele / ela / você	-ava	falava	he/she spoke; you spoke
nós	-ávamos	falávamos	we spoke / used to speak
(vós)	(-áveis)	(faláveis)	(you all spoke)
eles / elas / vocês	-avam	falavam	they spoke; you all spoke

Eu falava muito quando era criança.

I used to talk a lot when I was a child.

Tu falavas com a vizinha todos os dias.

You used to talk to the neighbour every day.

Notice two things. First, the eu and ele/você forms are identical -- both end in -ava. Context or an explicit pronoun tells you who the subject is. Second, the nós form carries a mandatory accent: falávamos. Without it, the stress would land on the wrong syllable.

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The accent on -ávamos is the only written accent in the -ar imperfect paradigm. It marks the stressed syllable (the antepenultimate). Forgetting it is a common writing mistake -- always double-check the nós form.

The -ava pattern -- no exceptions

All -ar verbs use the -ava set of endings in the imperfect. Unlike the present or the preterite, where some verbs have spelling changes or stem shifts, the imperfect has none. Verbs like ficar, chegar, and começar -- which need spelling adjustments in the preterite -- are perfectly regular here: ficava, chegava, começava. This makes the imperfect one of the easiest tenses to conjugate in the entire language.

Infinitive	Meaning	eu	nós	eles/vocês
trabalhar	to work	trabalhava	trabalhávamos	trabalhavam
morar	to live (reside)	morava	morávamos	moravam
estudar	to study	estudava	estudávamos	estudavam
gostar	to like	gostava	gostávamos	gostavam
brincar	to play	brincava	brincávamos	brincavam
comprar	to buy	comprava	comprávamos	compravam

Practice with common verbs

Here are common -ar verbs in natural sentences that express past habits, background descriptions, and ongoing states -- the core uses of the imperfect.

Quando era pequena, brincava no jardim.

When I was little, I used to play in the garden.

Ele trabalhava numa fábrica.

He worked / used to work in a factory.

Morávamos perto da praia.

We lived / used to live near the beach.

Estudavas muito nessa altura?

Did you study a lot at that time?

Elas gostavam de ir ao cinema aos sábados.

They used to like going to the cinema on Saturdays.

Os meus pais compravam peixe fresco no mercado todas as semanas.

My parents used to buy fresh fish at the market every week.

Imperfect for "used to"

The imperfect is the main way to express "used to" in Portuguese. Unlike English, no special construction is needed -- the imperfect form alone carries the habitual meaning.

Eu jogava futebol aos domingos.

I used to play football on Sundays.

A minha avó cozinhava sempre para a família toda.

My grandmother always used to cook for the whole family.

Time expressions like antigamente (in the old days), normalmente (normally), sempre (always), todos os dias (every day), and muitas vezes (often) frequently accompany the imperfect, reinforcing the idea of habit or repetition.

Imperfect for background and description

The imperfect sets the scene in a narrative -- weather, atmosphere, appearance, location. These are not events that moved the story forward; they are the backdrop against which events occurred.

Chovia e fazia frio.

It was raining and it was cold.

A casa ficava no cimo da colina.

The house was at the top of the hill.

Note that chover and fazer are -er verbs, but ficar is an -ar verb conjugated with the same -ava pattern: ficava.

Imperfect for ongoing past actions

When a past action was already in progress and something else interrupted it, the ongoing action goes in the imperfect. The interrupting event goes in the preterite.

O que fazias quando eu liguei?

What were you doing when I called?

Here liguei (preterite of ligar) is the completed interruption; fazias (imperfect) is what was already happening. In European Portuguese, this is the standard way to express the English past continuous ("was doing").

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European Portuguese does not normally use estar a + infinitive in the imperfect to express "was doing." While estava a fazer is grammatically correct, in most contexts the simple imperfect fazia is more natural and more common. Save the progressive form for when you want to emphasise that the action was actively in progress at a specific moment.

Common mistakes

1. Confusing the imperfect with the preterite. The preterite falou means "spoke" (a completed event); the imperfect falava means "was speaking" or "used to speak" (ongoing or habitual). Choosing the wrong tense changes the meaning of the sentence. Compare:

Tense	Form	Example	Meaning
Imperfect	falava	Ele falava com a mãe quando eu cheguei.	He was talking to his mother when I arrived.
Preterite	falou	Ele falou com a mãe ontem.	He spoke to his mother yesterday.

2. Forgetting the accent on falávamos. Without the accent, falavamos would place the stress incorrectly. Every -ar verb follows this rule: morávamos, trabalhávamos, estudávamos. Always include the accent on the nós form.

3. Looking for irregular -ar verbs in the imperfect. There are none. The only irregular verbs in the entire imperfect tense are ser, ter, vir, and pôr -- and none of them are -ar verbs. If the verb ends in -ar, its imperfect is regular. Period.

For the parallel imperfect patterns with -er and -ir verbs, see Imperfect: Regular -er/-ir Verbs. For a full overview of what the imperfect expresses, see Imperfect Overview. To compare the imperfect with the preterite, see Preterite: Regular -ar Verbs.