Latin for Students
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Imperfect tense

The imperfect tense can describe an unfinished, ongoing, or recurring action in the past.

In English:
  • I was laughing so hard.
  • She used to go to my school.
  • My dog kept finding ways to get into the garden, even when we put up a fence.

The imperfect tense has something called a temporal augmentor. This just means a sound that is put into the verb to show that it 

The temporal augmentor for the imperfect tense is -ba- . My middle school Latin teacher used to say (btw... "used to" is an example of imperfect!) that we could remember it by thinking about sheep. Sheep say "ba" and sheep are imperfect, because if sheep were perfect, they would rule the world. It might seem a little stupid and childish, but it has helped me remember it. 
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  • Home
  • About
    • The Site
    • The Creator
  • Grammar
    • Nouns >
      • Case >
        • Nominative case
        • Genitive case
        • Vocative case
        • Locative case
      • Number
      • Gender
      • Declension >
        • First declension
        • Second declension
        • Third declension
        • Fourth declension
        • Fifth declension
    • Pronouns >
      • Personal pronouns
      • Relative pronouns
      • Interrogative pronouns
      • Demonstrative pronouns
      • Reflexive pronouns
    • Adjectives
    • Verbs >
      • Person + Number
      • Tense >
        • The imperfect tenses >
          • Present tense
          • Future tense
          • Imperfect tense
        • The perfect tenses >
          • Perfect tense
          • Pluperfect tense
          • Future perfect tense
      • Infinitives
    • Adverbs
    • Prepositions
    • Conjunctions
  • Helpful tips
    • Tips for memorizing vocabulary
    • Tips for translating
    • Scansion
  • Fun Stuff!
    • Latin insults
    • Names that come from Latin