Imperfekti

Imperfekti, or the imperfect, is a grammatical category used in many languages to describe actions or states in the past without signaling their completion. It is typically associated with ongoing actions, habitual or repeated past actions, and background description in narratives. It often contrasts with perfective tenses, which present an action as a completed whole.

Across languages, the imperfect is a distinct past tense or aspect. In Romance languages such as Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese, the imperfect is formed with characteristic endings: hablaba, comía; parlait; parlava; falava. In Latin the imperfect uses endings like -bam, -bas, -bat, -bamus, -batis, -bant. In English, the imperfect sense is usually rendered with was/were + present participle (I was speaking) or with used to for habitual past actions.

In Finnish grammar, imperfekti is the term for past-tense verb forms used to report past events or states, and it is one of several past-tense options available in the language. The exact forms vary by verb class, but the function is to express simple past or ongoing past activity.

Uses of the imperfect include describing background scenes in narrative, signaling that a past action was ongoing, or noting habitual actions in the past. It is often contrasted with the perfect or aorist, which emphasize completion or a single, bounded event.

Form and realization differ by language: some languages rely on affixes to mark the imperfect, others use periphrastic constructions or a combination of mood and tense. The concept is central to discussions of aspect and tense in comparative grammar.