After ser, the second of Spanish's three irregular imperfects is ir. The forms are short, easy on the eye, and used constantly — ir is one of the highest-frequency verbs in the language, and its imperfect carries one of the most useful constructions you'll learn at A2: iba a + infinitivo, the past equivalent of I'm going to do something. This page covers the conjugation, the accent rules, the periphrastic use, and the meanings ir in the imperfect tends to carry in real Spanish.
The full paradigm
| Subject | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | iba |
| tú | ibas |
| él / ella / usted | iba |
| nosotros / nosotras | íbamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | ibais |
| ellos / ellas / ustedes | iban |
Three observations to anchor the paradigm:
- The only written accent in the paradigm sits on íbamos. Without it the word is misspelt.
- The peninsular vosotros form is ibais, without an accent — for the same stress-rule reason that erais takes no accent and -abais takes no accent. The stress is paroxytone (i-bais, on i-), default for words ending in s, no accent needed.
- Yo and él/ella/usted are identical (iba). Context — usually a pronoun or surrounding sentence — disambiguates.
Cuando vivíamos en el centro, íbamos a todos los sitios andando.
When we lived downtown, we used to go everywhere on foot.
Mi padre iba al bar de la esquina cada tarde a tomarse un café con los amigos.
My father would go to the bar on the corner every afternoon to have a coffee with his friends.
The accent on íbamos and not on ibais
The reasoning is the same as for éramos / erais on the previous page, but it's worth restating because íbamos is one of the most often misspelt verb forms among A2 learners.
- Í-ba-mos — three syllables, stressed on the first (í-). That makes it an esdrújula (proparoxytone), and Spanish requires every esdrújula to carry a written accent. íbamos is the only correct spelling.
- I-bais — two syllables (the -ais is a single diphthong), stressed on the first (i-). The word ends in s, the default stress for -s-final words is on the second-to-last syllable, and that's where the stress actually is. The default rule covers it; no accent.
So: íbamos with accent, ibais without. Mixing them up is the most common diacritic error on this verb.
Why ir is irregular here
The Spanish verb ir descends from two Latin roots, ire (to go) and vadere (to walk), and over the centuries it borrowed forms from a third, esse (to be). The imperfect iba/ibas comes from a Latin imperfect of ire (ibam, ibas, ibat), preserved almost intact. By contrast, the present (voy, vas) comes from vadere, and the preterite (fui, fuiste) is borrowed from the preterite of ser — which is why fui and fuiste mean both "I went" and "I was" depending on context.
You don't need this etymology to use the verb, but it explains why ir looks like three completely different verbs depending on the tense, while in the imperfect it returns to its oldest, cleanest form. The imperfect is the friendliest face of ir.
The big one: iba a + infinitivo
The single most useful pattern with ir in the imperfect is iba a + infinitivo — the past version of the voy a + infinitivo construction. Voy a llamar = "I'm going to call"; iba a llamar = "I was going to call" / "I was about to call".
This pattern is heavily used in two situations:
1. Past intention that was interrupted or never carried out
Iba a llamarte, pero al final se me hizo tarde y me dormí.
I was going to call you, but it got late and I fell asleep.
Íbamos a ir al cine, pero nos quedamos en casa porque estaba lloviendo a mares.
We were going to go to the cinema, but we stayed home because it was pouring.
Ibais a venir a cenar, ¿no? ¿Qué pasó al final?
You (guys) were going to come to dinner, weren't you? What ended up happening?
This is one of the most natural ways to talk about plans that fell through — and English speakers will find it almost a one-to-one translation of "I was going to _". The pattern is fully alive in Spain.
2. Past prediction or background plan
Sabíamos que iba a llover porque el parte del tiempo lo decía claramente.
We knew it was going to rain because the weather report said so clearly.
Mi hermana decía que iba a estudiar Medicina, y al final acabó en Bellas Artes.
My sister used to say she was going to study Medicine, and in the end she ended up in Fine Arts.
This usage is especially common in reported speech — dijo que iba a venir ("she said she was going to come"). Spanish handles tense in reported speech by shifting present-tense intentions (voy a) into the imperfect (iba a), much like English shifts "I'm going to" into "I was going to".
The other uses of ir in the imperfect
Beyond the iba a + infinitivo pattern, plain iba (without a + infinitivo) covers the standard imperfect meanings of ir: habitual movement, ongoing movement in the past, and direction-as-background.
Habitual movement
De pequeño iba al cole en bicicleta — eran cinco kilómetros y nunca me cansaba.
As a kid, I'd cycle to school — it was five kilometres and I never got tired.
Mis padres iban a Galicia todos los veranos cuando yo era pequeña.
My parents used to go to Galicia every summer when I was little.
Ongoing movement at a past moment
Iba por la Gran Vía cuando me crucé con Pablo, no nos veíamos desde hacía años.
I was walking down Gran Vía when I ran into Pablo — we hadn't seen each other in years.
Íbamos en el coche hacia Toledo cuando se nos pinchó una rueda.
We were driving towards Toledo when one of our tyres punctured.
Direction as background description
El tren iba lleno y tuvimos que viajar de pie hasta Atocha.
The train was full and we had to stand all the way to Atocha.
A trap: ibais vs ibas
Two forms in this paradigm look similar and are easy to swap in writing:
- ibas — tú form, two syllables (i-bas). Singular "you were going".
- ibais — vosotros form, two syllables (i-bais). Plural "you were going".
The difference is the -i- before -s in ibais. Drop it and you've turned a vosotros into a tú, or vice versa. The contrast is parallel to hablabas vs hablabais, comías vs comíais.
Tú ibas en bici al instituto, ¿no? — Sí, hasta tercero de la ESO.
You used to cycle to secondary school, didn't you? — Yeah, until year 9.
Vosotros ibais juntos al instituto, ¿no? — Sí, fuimos compañeros toda la ESO.
You guys used to go to secondary school together, didn't you? — Yeah, we were classmates all through it.
Source-language note for English speakers
English "to go" has two past forms — went (simple past) and was going (progressive past) — that map onto two Spanish forms:
- Fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron (preterite) → "went", a bounded movement from A to B.
- Iba, ibas, iba, íbamos, ibais, iban (imperfect) → "was going", "used to go", ongoing or habitual movement.
The translator's choice depends on which English version the context calls for. The pair that gives English speakers the most trouble is:
Ayer fui al supermercado.
Yesterday I went to the supermarket. (preterite: bounded, completed)
Antes iba al supermercado los sábados.
I used to go to the supermarket on Saturdays. (imperfect: habit)
If your English would naturally use "went" (one-off, finished), use fui. If it would naturally use "used to go" or "would go" (habitual) or "was going" (ongoing/interrupted), use iba.
The trickiest case is when the English "went" is ambiguous between the two readings — I went to the gym every day that summer. Spanish forces you to choose: iba al gimnasio todos los días aquel verano (the natural habitual reading) or fui al gimnasio todos los días aquel verano (a closed, summary statement, slightly more emphatic). Most speakers default to the imperfect for sentences with todos los días, cada semana, siempre.
Some idiomatic chunks with iba
A handful of phrasings with iba are so common they function as set chunks of conversational Spanish:
- ¿cómo te iba? — "how were you doing?" (used to ask about a past period of someone's life).
- iba para… — "was on track to / was heading for…" (iba para abogado, "was on track to be a lawyer").
- iba con… — "was hanging out with / was going around with…" (iba con un grupo del barrio).
- lo que iba a decir — "what I was going to say" — a discourse marker when you return to an interrupted thought.
Iba para músico, pero al final estudió Derecho como su padre.
He was on track to become a musician, but in the end he studied Law like his father.
Bueno, lo que iba a decir es que no me parece justo.
Well, what I was going to say is that I don't think it's fair.
Common mistakes
❌ De pequeños ivamos al parque cada tarde.
Wrong: 'ivamos' uses the wrong consonant — Spanish 'ir' is spelt with 'b' throughout the imperfect (íbamos, not ívamos).
✅ De pequeños íbamos al parque cada tarde.
Correct: íbamos with 'b' and the obligatory accent on í-.
❌ Vosotros ibáis a llamar, ¿no?
Wrong: ibais takes NO accent. The vosotros form is paroxytone, no accent needed.
✅ Vosotros ibais a llamar, ¿no?
Correct: ibais without accent.
❌ Ibamos al cine cuando nos llamaste.
Wrong: missing the obligatory accent on íbamos.
✅ Íbamos al cine cuando nos llamaste.
Correct: íbamos with accent (esdrújula).
❌ Ayer iba al supermercado y compré pan.
Wrong: 'ayer + bounded action' calls for the preterite fui, not the imperfect iba.
✅ Ayer fui al supermercado y compré pan.
Correct: fui (preterite) for a one-off completed event.
❌ Iba llamarte pero se me olvidó.
Wrong: the iba + infinitivo construction always uses 'a': 'iba a llamarte'.
✅ Iba a llamarte pero se me olvidó.
Correct: iba a llamarte for an unrealized intention.
Key takeaways
- The imperfect of ir is iba, ibas, iba, íbamos, ibais, iban.
- Ir is the second of only three irregular imperfects in all of Spanish (the others are ser and ver).
- The only accent is on íbamos. The peninsular vosotros form ibais takes no accent.
- Yo and él/ella are identical (iba); context disambiguates.
- The iba a + infinitivo construction is the past equivalent of voy a + infinitivo — used constantly for unrealized intentions ("I was going to…") and past predictions.
- Plain iba covers habitual movement, ongoing movement, and direction as background description. For one-off, bounded movements, use the preterite fui.
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- Imperfecto de ser: era, eras, eraA2 — The imperfect of ser — era, eras, era, éramos, erais, eran — one of only three irregular imperfects in Spanish, with the accent only on éramos, and the workhorse forms used for past identity, age, time, and description.
- Imperfecto de ver: veía, veíasA2 — Ver is one of only three irregular verbs in the Spanish imperfect — and the irregularity is the smallest possible: it keeps an extra -e- that the present indicative drops. The forms (veía, veías, veía, veíamos, veíais, veían) all carry an accent on the í of every person.
- Imperfecto: verbos regulares en -arA2 — The regular -ar imperfect — endings -aba, -abas, -aba, -ábamos, -abais, -aban — with the obligatory accent on nosotros, the unaccented peninsular vosotros form, and the meanings (habitual, background, ongoing) that this tense carries in Spain.
- Imperfecto: verbos regulares en -er e -irA2 — The regular -er and -ir imperfect — endings -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían, with the obligatory accent on every form, including the peninsular vosotros comíais and vivíais.
- Ir a + infinitivo: futuro y planesA1 — The workhorse near-future construction of spoken peninsular Spanish — voy a + infinitive for plans, intentions, and imminent events.