Portuguese · Chapter 8 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer
The imperfect: the background
The preterite reports the event; the imperfect describes what things were like around it.
The short version
The imperfect has only four irregular verbs
The pretérito imperfeito is the most regular tense in Portuguese. -ar verbs take -ava, -er and -ir verbs share -ia, and only ser, ter, vir and pôr break the pattern. Even poder and querer, awkward in the present, are regular here: podia, queria.
Quando eu era criança, eu tinha medo do escuro.
Habitual would is imperfect in Portuguese
Learners save the imperfect for sentences where English says used to, and miss the rest. English also marks habits with plain past or with would: every week we would eat at Grandma's. If it happened regularly, Portuguese wants the imperfect, whatever English does.
Toda semana a gente comia na casa da minha avó.
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