GCSE Latin: Indicative Active Imperfect

Imperfect Tense

The imperfect tense represents an ongoing or repeated action in the past.

The name imperfect literally means unfinished, as the completion of the action is not confirmed by this tense.

There are multiple ways to translate the imperfect tense into English, for example:

sedebam I was sitting
I used to sit
I sat

Other ways to translate the imperfect include: I began to sit, I kept on sitting and I tried to sit. These translations should not be needed for a GCSE language paper, but could be helpful to capture the author’s meaning in a piece of literature.

Imperfect Tense (Indicative Active)
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
singular 1st port-abam mon-ebam reg-ebam aud-iebam cap-iebam
2nd port-abas mon-ebas reg-ebas aud-iebas cap-iebas
3rd port-abat mon-ebat reg-ebat aud-iebat cap-iebat
plural 1st port-abamus mon-ebamus reg-ebamus aud-iebamus cap-iebamus
2nd port-abatis mon-ebatis reg-ebatis aud-iebatis cap-iebatis
3rd port-abant mon-ebant reg-ebant aud-iebant cap-iebant