There are only three verbs with irregular conjugations in the imperfect: ir, ser, and ver. Remember how there were a lot of irregular verbs and rules to verbs in the Preterit Tense? Well, you’re going to love the irregular verbs in the Imperfect Tense because there are only THREE! Woohoo! Let’s check them out…
In the Imperfect Tense in Spanish we only have three irregular verbs. They are: Ir, Ser and Ver. Remember that in the Imperfect Tense we are talking about actions that have been repeated “over and over” in the past tense. That means that these verbs sound something like “used to go”, “used to be”, “used to watch” in the Imperfect Tense. These could also sound like “was going”, “was being”, “was watching” if they are used as a continuous action that was interrupted in the past tense.
Let’s look at these irregular Imperfect Tense verbs’ conjugation charts below:
IR – To go
| Iba | Íbamos |
| Ibas | Ibais |
| Iba | Iban |
SER – To be
| Era | Éramos |
| Eras | Erais |
| Era | Eran |
VER – To see
| Veía | Veíamos |
| Veías | Veíais |
| Veía | Veían |
NOTE: The yo and él/ella/usted forms are the same for each of these verbs. The only way to know the difference is to look at the context of the sentence in which they are being used.