Childhood
Yo jugaba con mis amigas
We've already seen one way to talk about the past in Spanish: the preterite.
Yo bebí mucho café esta mañana.
I drank a lot of coffee this morning.
However, if you want to say what you always did or what you used to do, verbs get put into a form called imperfect. This form takes a different set of endings. Here are the endings for verbs that end in ‑ar:
| subject | verb (jugar) |
| yo | jugaba |
| tú | jugabas |
And here are the endings for ‑er and ‑ir verbs. Pay close attention to the accent marks!
| subject | verb (comer) |
| yo | comía |
| tú | comías |
| subject | verb (vivir) |
| yo | vivía |
| tú | vivías |
Cuando era niña, yo siempre jugaba con mis muñecas.
When I was a girl, I always played with my dolls.
Tú comías con tu familia todos los domingos.
You used to eat with your family every Sunday.
The weirdness of ser
It’s probably not too surprising to find out that ser doesn’t follow regular endings in the imperfect!
Yo era una niña muy tranquila.
I was a very calm girl.
Cuando eras niño, montabas tu bicicleta todos los días.
When you were a child, you used to ride your bicycle every day.