There is almost nothing new to learn here — and that is the point. A reflexive verb in the imperfect is just the regular imperfect with its matching clitic stuck in front: mă spălam, te duceai, se gândea. No special endings, no stem surprises beyond the ones the non-reflexive verb already had. What is worth a whole page is why these forms turn up so relentlessly in Romanian storytelling. Because the imperfect is the tense of the unfolding background, and because so many verbs of feeling, thinking, and bodily state are reflexive (a se simți, a se gândi, a se teme), the reflexive imperfect becomes the natural voice of description and interior monologue. When a Romanian narrator tells you how a character felt, thought, and was doing, you are almost always reading reflexive imperfects.
The formula: clitic + regular imperfect
Take any reflexive verb's imperfect of its plain stem, then prefix the accusative clitic that agrees with the subject — mă, te, se, ne, vă, se. That is the entire rule.
| Person | Clitic | a se duce (to go) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| eu | mă | mă duceam | I was going / used to go |
| tu | te | te duceai | you were going |
| el / ea | se | se ducea | he / she was going |
| noi | ne | ne duceam | we were going |
| voi | vă | vă duceați | you (pl.) were going |
| ei / ele | se | se duceau | they were going |
The verb part (duceam, duceai, ducea...) is the ordinary imperfect of a duce — theme -ea-, the usual endings -m, -i, -∅, -m, -ți, -u. The clitic just rides in front of it. Notice the eu = noi overlap survives untouched: mă duceam is "I was going," ne duceam is "we were going," kept apart by the clitic itself this time (mă vs ne), which is a small bonus — the reflexive clitic often disambiguates where the bare imperfect could not.
Mă duceam la școală pe jos în fiecare dimineață.
I used to walk to school every morning.
Se ducea des la bunici, mai ales vara.
She used to go to her grandparents' often, especially in the summer.
Ne plimbam prin parc ore în șir și nu ne plictiseam niciodată.
We would stroll through the park for hours on end and never got bored.
Word order: where the clitic sits
In the imperfect — as in the present — the clitic comes immediately before the verb, and nothing of the verb's own material wedges between them. This is unlike the perfect compus, where the clitic attaches to the auxiliary (m-am dus, "I went"). In the imperfect there is no auxiliary, so the clitic simply leans on the single verb form.
Se gândea la viitor și zâmbea.
He was thinking about the future and smiling.
Te uitai pe fereastră de parcă așteptai pe cineva.
You kept looking out the window as if you were waiting for someone.
Compare the tenses side by side, because the contrast is exactly the kind of thing learners blur:
| Tense | "I went" (a se duce) | Clitic attaches to |
|---|---|---|
| Imperfect | mă duceam | the verb itself |
| Perfect compus | m-am dus | the auxiliary am |
| Present | mă duc | the verb itself |
Negation: nu in front of everything
Negation is also clean. Nu sits in front of the whole clitic-plus-verb unit; the clitic does not move. So "I wasn't thinking" is nu mă gândeam, with the order nu + mă + gândeam — never mă nu gândeam.
Nu mă gândeam la nimic, doar priveam marea.
I wasn't thinking about anything, I was just looking at the sea.
Nu se simțea bine, dar n-a vrut să spună.
She wasn't feeling well, but she didn't want to say so.
Nu ne grăbeam deloc, aveam tot timpul din lume.
We weren't in any hurry — we had all the time in the world.
Dative reflexives in the imperfect
A second family of reflexives uses the dative clitic series — îmi, îți, își, ne, vă, își — typically for things done to or for oneself: remembering, imagining, picturing. In the imperfect these behave identically: matching dative clitic + regular imperfect.
| Person | Dative clitic | a-și aminti (to remember) |
|---|---|---|
| eu | îmi | îmi aminteam |
| tu | îți | îți aminteai |
| el / ea | își | își amintea |
| noi | ne | ne aminteam |
| voi | vă | vă aminteați |
| ei / ele | își | își aminteau |
Îmi aminteam mereu de vacanțele de la mare.
I always used to remember the seaside holidays.
Își imagina că într-o zi va deveni pilot.
He used to imagine that one day he would become a pilot.
Nu-mi mai aminteam cum arăta casa bunicilor.
I no longer remembered what my grandparents' house looked like.
Note how negation contracts in speech: nu-mi aminteam is the everyday spoken shape of nu îmi aminteam, and both are correct (the elided form is the colloquial default). The fuller verbs/reflexive/dative-reflexives page covers the dative series in depth; here the only new fact is that the imperfect changes nothing about how the clitic works.
Why reflexive imperfects saturate description
This is the real lesson. The imperfect is the background tense — it holds the camera on states and ongoing scenes (see verbs/imperfect/usage-narrative). And a striking share of the verbs that describe inner life are reflexive in Romanian:
| Verb | Meaning | Imperfect (3sg) |
|---|---|---|
| a se simți | to feel (a state) | se simțea |
| a se gândi | to think (about) | se gândea |
| a se teme | to be afraid | se temea |
| a se întreba | to wonder | se întreba |
| a-și aminti | to remember | își amintea |
| a-și imagina | to imagine | își imagina |
Feeling, thinking, fearing, wondering, remembering, imagining — these are precisely the ongoing interior states a narrator paints while the plot waits. So they land in the imperfect, and because they are reflexive, the page of any Romanian novel is dense with se gândea, se simțea, se temea, se întreba. When you read an interior monologue, you are reading a chain of reflexive imperfects.
Mă simțeam obosit și nu mai aveam chef de nimic.
I felt tired and didn't feel like anything anymore.
Se gândea la ea în fiecare seară, fără să spună nimănui.
He thought about her every evening, without telling anyone.
Se temea de întuneric, așa că dormea cu lumina aprinsă.
She was afraid of the dark, so she slept with the light on.
Mă întrebam dacă am luat decizia corectă.
I was wondering whether I'd made the right decision.
How this differs from English
English does not bundle feeling and thinking verbs into a reflexive class — we say "I felt," "I was thinking," with no pronoun. So the English speaker's instinct is to drop the clitic and produce the bare simțeam or gândeam, which are not standard Romanian verbs in these meanings. The clitic is not optional decoration; a se simți and a se gândi simply are reflexive, the same way a se uita (to look) is. The discipline is to memorize the clitic as part of the verb and carry it into every tense, the imperfect included.
There is also the opposite trap: freezing the clitic as se for every person, on the false intuition that se is "the reflexive particle." It is not — it is specifically the third-person clitic. For "I was thinking" the clitic must agree: mă gândeam, not se gândeam.
Common Mistakes
❌ Se gândeam la tine toată ziua.
Incorrect — the clitic must agree with 'I'; it is mă, not the third-person se.
✅ Mă gândeam la tine toată ziua.
I was thinking about you all day.
❌ Simțeam obosit și voiam să dorm.
Incorrect — a se simți is reflexive; you cannot drop the clitic.
✅ Mă simțeam obosit și voiam să dorm.
I felt tired and wanted to sleep.
❌ Mă nu duceam des la ei.
Incorrect word order — 'nu' goes in front of the whole unit: nu mă duceam.
✅ Nu mă duceam des la ei.
I didn't go to their place often.
❌ Ne uitam la mine în oglindă.
Incorrect clitic for a singular subject — 'I was looking' is mă uitam, not the plural ne.
✅ Mă uitam la mine în oglindă.
I was looking at myself in the mirror.
❌ Își aminteam de copilărie. (for 'I')
Incorrect — the dative clitic for 'I' is îmi, not the third-person își.
✅ Îmi aminteam de copilărie.
I used to remember my childhood.
Key Takeaways
- The reflexive imperfect = matching clitic + regular imperfect, with no new endings or stems: mă duceam, te duceai, se ducea, ne duceam, vă duceați, se duceau.
- The clitic sits right before the verb; nu goes in front of the whole unit (nu mă gândeam) — unlike the perfect compus, where the clitic attaches to the auxiliary (m-am dus).
- Dative reflexives work the same way: îmi aminteam, își imagina.
- The clitic must agree with the subject — don't freeze it as se, and don't drop it.
- Reflexive imperfects of feeling and thinking (mă simțeam, se gândea, se temea, se întreba) dominate description and interior monologue, because the imperfect is the background tense and these inner-state verbs are reflexive in Romanian.
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- The Imperfect: OverviewA2 — An introduction to the Romanian imperfect — the past tense for ongoing, habitual, and background actions — and how it contrasts with the completed-event perfect compus.
- Accusative Reflexive VerbsA2 — The accusative reflexive clitics mă, te, se, ne, vă, se — true reflexives and the large class of verbs that are reflexive in form only.
- Dative Reflexive VerbsB1 — The dative reflexive clitics îmi, îți, își, ne, vă, își — verbs like a-și aminti and a-și dori that act on one's own mind or in one's own interest.
- Using the Imperfect in NarrativeB1 — How the Romanian imperfect paints the backdrop — time, weather, ongoing actions, states, age, and habits — against which perfect-compus events happen, plus its softening use in polite requests.
- Imperfect: Class I (-a) VerbsA2 — How to form the imperfect of Class I verbs ending in -a, including why present-tense -ez infixes disappear entirely in this tense.