What this is about
Portuguese has TWO simple past tenses, and they answer different questions. The pretérito perfeito (Lição 5) answers "what happened?" — events, one after another. The imperfeito answers "what was it like?" — habits, descriptions, background scenery. English hides this difference inside "I lived / I used to live / I was living"; Portuguese puts it right in the verb ending.
FALAR — imperfeito
COMER / ABRIR — imperfeito
Only three real irregulars
| ser → era, era, éramos, eram | Eu era criança… |
| ter → tinha, tinha, tínhamos, tinham | Eu tinha um cachorro. |
| ir → ia, ia, íamos, iam | Eu ia para a escola a pé. |
When to use the imperfeito
| habits — "used to" | Antigamente eu trabalhava no centro. |
| descriptions in the past | A casa era grande e tinha um jardim. |
| age & time in the past | Eu tinha dez anos. · Era meia-noite. |
| background for a story | Chovia muito quando ela chegou. |
Imperfeito vs perfeito — the choice in action
| Eu morava no Rio. | background: I lived / used to live there |
| Eu morei no Rio por dois anos. | a closed chapter with borders → perfeito |
| Enquanto eu cozinhava, ele chegou. | rolling background (cozinhava) + interrupting event (chegou) |
Exceptions & details
1 · The polite imperfeito: Eu queria um café — "I wanted" softened into "I'd like" (Lição 18 runs on this).
2 · Spoken future-in-the-past: Ela disse que ia viajar — ia + infinitive = was going to.
3 · Imperfeito replaces the conditional in speech: Se eu pudesse, eu comprava (instead of compraria) — extremely Brazilian, fully correct in conversation.
Practise this chapter
4 pool questions plus generated ones — 20 fresh practice questions, reshuffled every visit, inside the grammar library.
Practise The imperfeito: era, tinha, morava — 20 questions →This chapter is taught in Lição 9 of the course (level A2). Rumo is a complete Brazilian Portuguese course, A1 to B2; level A1 is free.