auxiliary verbs in the pluperfect of the passive voice along with perfect passive participles. Romance languages In Romance languages, the imperfect is generally a past tense. Its uses include representing: Repetition and continuity: an action that was happening, used to happen, or happened regularly in the past, as it was ongoing A description of people, things, or conditions of the past A time in the past A relation between past happenings: a situation that was in progress in the past or a condition originated in a previous time, when another isolated and important event occurred (the first verb, indicating the status in progress or condition from the past using the imperfect, while the latter uses the preterite). A physical or mental state or condition in progress in the past. Often used with verbs of being, emotion, capability, or conscience. A common mistake of beginners learning a Romance language is putting too much emphasis on whether the time the action occurred is known. This generally does not affect how the imperfect is used. For example, the sentence "Someone ate all of my cookies." (when translated) is not a good candidate for the imperfect. Fundamentally, it is no different from the sentence "We ate all the cookies." Note this fails the repeatability requirement of the imperfect, as it is only known to have happened once. On the other hand, the sentence "I used to have fun in the 1960s." is a good candidate for the imperfect, even though its period is known. In short, knowing when an action occurred is not nearly as important as how long it occurred (or was and still is occurring). French To form the imperfect for French regular verbs, take the first person plural present tense, the "nous" (we) form, subtract the -ons suffix, and add the appropriate ending (the forms for être (to be), whose "nous" form does not end in -ons, are irregular; they start with ét- but have the same endings). Verbs that terminate in a stem of -cer and -ger undergo minor orthographic changes to preserve the phonetic sound or allophone. Verbs whose root terminates in the letter "i" maintain the letter despite the consecutiveness in the "nous" and "vous" forms. It is used to express the ideas of habitual actions or states of being; physical and emotional descriptions: time, weather, age, feelings; actions or states of an unspecified duration; background information in