Day 16 of 30
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Talking about the past — imperfetto. imperfetto
Day 14 gave you the passato prossimo for things that happened once. Today's tense — the imperfetto — is for how things were: habits, descriptions, weather, age, and the background of a story. 'Quando ero piccolo, abitavo a Delhi' (when I was little, I lived in Delhi). You'll learn its endings, when to choose it over passato prossimo, the handful of irregulars, and how to narrate a memory.
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01Imperfetto — the endings
Drop -re and add -vo, -vi, -va, -vamo, -vate, -vano. The most regular tense in Italian — the same endings for -are, -ere and -ire verbs.
8–10 min
02Imperfetto vs passato
When to use which: imperfetto for the background scene, passato prossimo for the single event. The interrupted-action pattern with 'mentre'.
9–11 min
03When I was young
The autobiographical imperfetto — 'quando ero piccolo', describing where you grew up in India, and c'era / c'erano for what there used to be.
8–10 min
04Telling a story
Weave the two past tenses into a short anecdote: imperfetto for the scene, passato prossimo for what happened.
9–11 min
Hindi marks the same habit-vs-once difference
Roz / hamesha (every day / always) feel like the imperfetto — a repeated habit. Kal / ek baar (yesterday / once) feel like the passato prossimo — a single event. When you describe growing up in India, lean on the imperfetto: 'abitavo, andavo, mangiavamo' — it maps almost exactly onto 'main rehta tha / jaata tha'.
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