Terminavamo

Terminavamo is the first person plural imperfect indicative form of the Italian verb terminare, meaning “we were finishing” or “we used to finish.” It denotes an ongoing action in the past or a habitual past action. The verb terminare comes from Latin terminare, from terminus, end, boundary, and belongs to the first conjugation (-are verbs). In the imperfect, terminare forms add -avo for all persons: io terminavo, tu terminavi, lui/lei terminava, noi terminavamo, voi terminavate, loro terminavano.

In usage, terminavamo takes a direct object to indicate what was being finished: “terminavamo il lavoro” (we were finishing the work); “terminavamo la discussione” (we were ending the discussion). It is often used in narrative to set a scene about a past timeframe or to describe routine or repeated past actions. It can be combined with temporal expressions like “ieri,” “quando,” or “mentre” to describe overlapping actions: “Ieri terminavamo il progetto quando arrivò il cliente.”

Common alternatives include “stavamo finendo,” which is often preferred if the nuance is that the action was in progress at a specific moment. Terminare is a transitive verb; its past participle is “terminato,” used with auxiliary avere to form compound tenses like “abbiamo terminato.” Terminavamo thus functions as a standard imperfect form in Italian and is widely understood in both formal and colloquial contexts.