jugabais

Jugabais is the second-person plural imperfect indicative form of the Spanish verb jugar, meaning “you all used to play.” It expresses past actions that were habitual or ongoing, serving as background or repeated activities in the past. While many learners focus on present and perfect tenses, the imperfect forms like jugabais are essential for describing past routines and settings.

Morphology and usage: In Spanish, -ar verbs in the imperfect tense take the endings -aba, -abas, -aba, -ábamos, -abais, -aban. Therefore, the form jugabais combines the stem jug- with the ending -abais. This form is used with the vosotros subject pronoun (you all), which is common in Spain and some regions of Latin America; in much of Latin America, ustedes would be used instead of vosotros, and ustedes jugaban would be the corresponding past form.

Regional variation: The primary distinction involves the second-person plural pronoun. In contexts where vosotros is not used, jugabais is typically replaced by the corresponding ustedes form in past imperfect sentences (for example, ustedes jugaban). Some literary or regional varieties may retain vosotros for stylistic reasons, but jugabais itself is tied to the vosotros conjugation system.

Examples: Examples of usage include: Cuando éramos niños, vosotros jugabais en el parque todas las tardes. Antes de la hora de comer, vosotros jugabais al fútbol en la cancha del barrio. En historias narradas en España, es común escuchar jugabais para situar acciones habituales en el pasado.