guardava

Guardava is the imperfect indicative form of the Italian verb guardare, meaning to watch or to look. In English, guardava corresponds to “he was watching” or “she was looking,” and it is used to describe ongoing or repeated actions in the past.

In Italian, guardare is a regular -are verb. In the imperfect tense, the endings are -avo, -avi, -ava, -avamo, -avate, -avano. Therefore, forms include io guardavo, tu guardavi, lui/lei guardava, noi guardavamo, voi guardavate, loro guardavano. Guardava specifically marks the third-person singular in this tense.

Usage examples include: “Mentre guardava il mare, pensava al passato.” or “Lui guardava la TV ogni sera.” The form should not be confused with guardò, the passato remoto third-person singular, or ha guardato, the passato prossimo.

See also: guardare, Italian verb conjugation, and common Italian past tenses. Guardava is one of several imperfect forms of guardare and is typically used in narrative to set a past scene or describe habitual past actions. Understanding guardava and related forms helps in parsing tense and aspect in standard Italian prose.