The imperfect tense is used for ongoing actions (e.g. was doing) or actions done regularly in the past (e.g. used to do). It is formed by taking the endings off a verb to form its "stem". For -ar verbs (e.g. hablar which becomes habl) we add these endings-:abaabasabaábamosabaisaban
For -ir and -er verbs (e.g. comer and vivir) we add these endings:íaíasíaíamosíaisían.