Italian Imperfect Tense: How to Form and Use It

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The Italian imperfect tense, or imperfetto, describes past actions and situations without presenting them as completed events.

Two past tenses that Italian learners often compare are the passato prossimo and the imperfetto. The difference is not simply whether English uses “was”. It depends on how you present the action or situation.

Here’s how to form the imperfetto, choose between the two tenses and avoid the most common mix-ups.

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Imperfetto vs. Passato Prossimo in Italian

The passato prossimo, also called the compound past, usually presents an event as completed. The imperfetto presents a past action as ongoing or habitual, or describes the background and state around another event.

You form the passato prossimo with the present tense of avere or essere plus a past participle.

For example, ho mangiato can mean “I ate” or “I have eaten”.

The imperfect tense is a single-word form. Mangiavo can mean “I was eating” or “I used to eat”, depending on the context.

A useful first question is whether you are reporting a completed event or setting the scene with an action, habit or state in progress.

Use the passato prossimo for a completed event that moves the story forward. Use the imperfetto when the action is ongoing, repeated or part of the background.

If you choose the wrong tense, an Italian speaker may still understand you, but the meaning can shift or sound incomplete.

English translations can give you a clue, but they do not map neatly onto one Italian tense. Pay attention to whether the Italian sentence presents an endpoint.

You do not need to wait for perfect accuracy before you speak. Use the distinction, notice the corrections you receive and keep refining it.

How to Form the Italian Imperfect Tense

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The imperfetto is simpler to build than the passato prossimo because it does not need an auxiliary verb or a past participle.

For regular verbs, the ending keeps the vowel that marks the verb group: -a- for -are, -e- for -ere and -i- for -ire.

Remove -re from the infinitive, then add these personal endings:

• -vo for io (“I”)
• -vi for tu (“you”, singular and familiar)
• -va for lui, lei or formal Lei (“he”, “she” or formal “you”)
• -vamo for noi (“we”)
• -vate for voi (“you”, plural)
• -vano for loro (“they”)

This gives you forms such as parlavo from parlare, credevo from credere and dormivo from dormire.

A few frequent verbs do not follow this infinitive shortcut exactly. Essere becomes ero, eri, era, eravamo, eravate, erano. Other common forms include facevo from fare, dicevo from dire and bevevo from bere.

When to Use the Imperfect Tense in Italian

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Use the imperfetto when you present a past situation without focusing on its beginning or end. These are the four patterns you will meet most often:

Describing people, places or things in the past

Examples:

• Da piccola avevo i capelli ricci. – “When I was a child, I had curly hair.”
• Era un uomo coraggioso. – “He was a brave man.”
• La macchina era arrugginita. – “The car was rusty.”

Talking about habits or repeated actions

Examples:

• Ogni martedì ci incontravamo al bar. – “Every Tuesday, we used to meet at the bar.”
• Correva alla porta ogni volta che suonava il campanello. – “They would run to the door whenever the doorbell rang.”

Describing past states, feelings or thoughts

Examples:

• Aveva sonno. – “He or she was sleepy.”
• Gli faceva male la testa. – “He had a headache.”
• Eravamo tristi. – “We were sad.”

Giving the background for a completed event

When a completed event interrupts an ongoing action, use the imperfetto for the background action and the passato prossimo for the completed event.

Example:

• Mentre guardavo la TV, ha suonato il telefono. – “While I was watching TV, the phone rang.”

The imperfetto has other narrative and conversational uses, but these four patterns are a practical starting point.

Thanks to Transparent Language for the original examples.

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To make the distinction feel familiar, notice both tenses in stories and try the patterns in examples from your own life.

This lesson was adapted from my language hacking guide, Why Italian is Easy. Pick up your own copy here.