movían

Movían is the third-person plural form of the Spanish verb mover in the imperfect indicative. It translates to “they were moving” or “they used to move” in English and is used with subjects such as ellos, ellas, or ustedes. The form expresses actions in the past without specifying their beginning or end, often describing ongoing or habitual past events.

Formation and orthography: The imperfect endings for -er verbs like mover are -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían. With the stem mov-, the forms are movía, movías, movía, movíamos, movíais, movían. The acute accent on í in movían marks the standard stress pattern. In Spain the vosotros form is movíais, while the vosotros form differs from movían which corresponds to ellos/ellas/ustedes.

Usage: Movían describes actions that were in progress in the past, actions that happened repeatedly, or the background setting in a narrative. It is used in dependent clauses with durante, cuando, mientras, etc., to situate past events. It does not convey a completed past action (that would be pretérito indefinido or pretérito perfecto).

Examples: “Los obreros movían las cajas todas las tardes.” “Las ruedas movían el coche con un ritmo constante.” “Mientras llovía, los niños movían las piezas del rompecabezas.”

Notes: This form is standard across dialects for the imperfect; the corresponding vosotros form is movíais. In many dialects, ustedes is used with both plural pronouns, but movían remains the form for ellos/ustedes in the imperfect.

See also: mover; imperfect tense; Spanish verb conjugation.