Chegava

Chegava is a conjugated form of the Portuguese verb chegar. It represents the pretérito imperfeito do indicativo (imperfect past) and corresponds to the first person singular eu chegava and the third person singular ele/ela/você chegava, depending on the subject of the sentence. This form is used to describe habitual or ongoing actions in the past or to set background in past narration.

In use, chegava conveys nuance beyond a single completed event. It signals that an arrival or a reaching action happened repeatedly or over a period, rather than as a single point in time. It can also describe situations that were ongoing when another event occurred, or use as a literary device to describe mood, setting, or context in past storytelling.

Examples illustrate its typical functions: “Eu chegava sempre cedo ao trabalho” speaks of a habitual arrival pattern; “Ela chegava tarde por causa do trânsito” describes an ongoing situation in the past; “A cidade chegava ao fim da tarde” can describe a scene developing toward evening. In conditional or hypothetical contexts, the imperfect can appear in subordinate clauses, as in “Se eu chegasse mais cedo, ajudaria a preparar tudo.”

Chegava is a standard form across Portuguese varieties for expressing imperfect past actions related to arriving or reaching, and it forms part of the broader conjugation system of chegar. Related forms include chegarei (future), cheguei (pretérito perfeito), and chegado (participle).