The Romanian imperfect

The imperfect is a one-word Romanian past tense for an action or state viewed as ongoing, repeated, habitual, or part of the background of a story: Când am ajuns, Ana citea. (When I arrived, Ana was reading.)

How do you form the Romanian imperfect?

Start with the verb stem, add the imperfect suffix selected by the verb, and then add the six personal endings -m, -i, zero, -m, -ți, -u; the first-person singular and plural therefore look alike.

What do the six persons look like?

The endings are stable across the main patterns. The table makes the repeated first-person forms and the plural ending -ți visible.

Some frequent verbs have a stem change that you should record rather than calculate: a face has făceam (I was doing/making), and a veni has veneam (I was coming). The imperfect keeps the form of the tense while the stem may still reflect the verb's established spelling.

Which high-frequency verbs are irregular?

Learn the following common paradigms as whole sets. Their imperfect forms do not reward a beginner's attempt to derive every letter from the present tense.

For the verb of wanting, voiam is the useful neutral form in contemporary Romanian. DOOM3 also records vream with a vrea as rare, so do not treat it as the default learner form.

When do you use the imperfect?

Choose the imperfect when the past situation is presented from the inside: it was unfolding, used to happen, continued as a state, or supplied the setting for another event. English may translate it with was/were …-ing, used to, would, or sometimes a simple past.

• Use it for an action in progress when another event occurs: Citeam când m-ai sunat. (I was reading when you called me.)
• Use it for a repeated or habitual past routine: În copilărie, mergeam la bunici în fiecare vară. (As a child, I used to go to my grandparents every summer.)
• Use it for a continuing background state or description: Era frig și ploua. (It was cold and raining.)
• Use it for a past state of knowledge, belief, or expectation: Știam că ajungi la șase. (I knew you were arriving at six.)
• Use it in a softened request or pre-request: Voiam doar să vă cer un sfat. (I just wanted to ask you for some advice.)

How does the imperfect relate to a completed past event?

In a short past narrative, the imperfect commonly supplies the background and the compound past marks the bounded event that moves the story forward: Când am intrat, Maria citea. (When I entered, Maria was reading.) The imperfect itself does not say that an action was never completed; it leaves its beginning or endpoint outside the speaker's focus.

A sentence can contain several imperfects when the situations overlap or repeat: Când treceam pe acolo, magazinul era mereu închis. (Whenever I passed there, the shop was always closed.) For the full contrast with the Romanian compound past, see perfectul compus and the dedicated comparison article.

How do you negate the imperfect and add clitics?

Because the imperfect is a simple tense, put nu before the finite verb. Unstressed personal or reflexive pronouns and small adverbs stay between nu and the verb, as in the general Romanian pattern for negation.

• Positive reflexive form: Mă grăbeam. (I was hurrying.)
• Negative reflexive form: Nu mă grăbeam. (I was not hurrying.)
• Negative with an adverb: Nu mai vedeam nimic. (I could no longer see anything.)
• Two object clitics: Tu mi-o arătai. (You were showing it to me.) → Tu nu mi-o arătai. (You were not showing it to me.)

What mistakes should you avoid?

• Do not use the present ending after the imperfect stem: lucram, not lucrez or lucrăm, for “I was working.”
• Do not assume that every -i verb takes -ia-: a citi gives citeam, while vowel-final a locui gives locuiam.
• Keep the ă in the imperfect of a face: the standard form is făceam.
• Do not put nu after the pronoun or the verb: say Nu mă grăbeam, not Mă nu grăbeam or Mă grăbeam nu.
• Do not translate every imperfect as English was …-ing: a repeated routine such as mergeam la bunici is usually “I used to go to my grandparents.”