Latin Grammar Mini-Series | Lesson 5 - Understanding the Imperfect & Future Tense in the First and Second Conjugations

There are three important rules to remember: 

(1) the tense sign for the future tense is -bi- meaning “will”; 

(2) the tense sign for the imperfect tense is -ba- meaning “was” or “were,” “used to,” “kept on,” or “did”; 

(3) adjective endings are directional. 

The future tense indicates that the action of the verb will take place at some point after the present. The English future tense sign is “will.” “Shall” is no longer used. English inserts the future tense sign, “will,” between the personal pronoun, “I,” “you,” “he,” and the verb base. 

For example, “they will love,” “we will warn,” “I will be mistaken.” 

Latin does the same except that the verb base plus the thematic vowel precedes the personal ending:

-am- meaning “love”

-a- the thematic vowel

-s the personal ending denoting “you.”

The future tense sign, -bi- goes between the base and thematic vowel and the ending, am-a-bi-s, “love will you” literally in that order, meaning “you will love.” 

Here are some examples of the future tense in Latin: 

vocabimus: “we will call”; 

monebit: “he will warn.” 

Remember that the elements of a Latin verb come in the reverse order from English verbs. 

Latin starts with a base which conveys the meaning, then the tense sign, then the personal ending. 

English starts with a pronoun -- the equivalent of the personal ending in Latin -- then the tense sign, then the verb base which conveys the meaning. 

The Imperfect Tense

The Imperfect Tense in Latin signifies action that was not completed in the past or was repeated or habitual. As such, it best corresponds to English past tense forms like “was doing,” “used to do,” “kept on doing.” 

The simple past, “did,” is another translation but don’t use it for now. We’ll talk about that later. 

The imperfect tense sign in Latin is -ba- which is placed between the base/thematic vowel and the ending. Note that’s exactly the same position as the future tense sign, isn’t it? Here’s an example of an imperfect verb in Latin: 

vocabamus, “we were calling,” or “we used to call,” or “we kept on calling,” or the simple past, “we called,” but I’ve already warned you not to use that. Don’t do it!