queríais

Queríais is the second-person plural imperfect indicative form of the Spanish verb querer. It corresponds to “you all wanted” or “you all used to want” in English, and is used with the pronoun vosotros, which is common in Spain and in some regional varieties. In Spanish varieties that do not use vosotos, the past tense corresponding to ustedes would be ustedes querían.

Morphology and pronunciation: quer- is the stem, and the ending is -íais, a standard imperfect for -er verbs in vosostros forms. The accent on the í marks the stressed syllable, so the pronunciation centers on that vowel: que-RÍ-áis. It is not the imperfect subjunctive form; that tense has its own forms such as quisierais or quisieras, depending on the variant.

Usage notes: Queríais expresses past desires or habitual wants. It can appear in questions like ¿Qué queríais hacer ayer? or in statements like Cuando erais niños, queríais aprender mucho. In dialects without vosotros, the equivalent expression uses ustedes querían, for example ustedes querían.

Etymology: Querer comes from the Latin quaerere, through the evolution of Old Spanish into modern quiero/quieren forms. The imperfect vosotr os ending -íais is a regular marker for -er verbs in that tense, yielding queríais.

See also: Related verb forms include quiero, quieres, quiere (present), querré (future), and the imperfect subjunctive forms such as quisierais or quisiera, which are used in hypothetical past contexts rather than in simple past statements.