IMPERFETTO

The IMPERFETTO is a tense of the past that has no direct equivalent in English. (Linguists actually call the Imperfetto "aspect." If you want to know more about this click on the icon to connect to a site.)

The traditional explanations in grammar books is that the imperfetto is the "tense of narration in the past."

This doesn't really explain much. Since there is no conceptual parallel in English, we think it is more efficient just to show when it should be used, without trying to formulate an all encompassing linguistic and cognitive theory.(We do have one, though, but it would serve no purpose to publish it here.)

Our basic recommandation is still valid:

DO NOT BE OBSESSED WITH ACCURACY.

DO NOT ALLOW THE DESIRE TO BE GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT TO INHIBIT YOUR COMMUNICATION.

Nobody will fail to understand you just because you used the Passato Prossimo in place of the Imperfetto or viceversa.

Here two cases when IMPERFETTO is the preferred* tense:

1) to express a habitual action in the past, i.e. something akin to: "Everyday I would go to school..." or "I used to ..."

2) with verbs that express a STATE rather than an ACTION,i.e.verbs such as ESSERE, STARE and AVERE which do not define a specific event.

"aveva una bicicletta rossa," "eravamo amici," "stavo bene"

* "PREFERRED" because these are not hard and fast rules