The imperfect verb: basic forms; The imperfect verb: different stem-types; Review of verb forms; The uses of the imperfect.

The verb-forms we have encountered thus far, like shárab, gaal, búga, are used to describe completed actions which took place in the past - hence the conventional translations 'he drank', 'he said', 'he remained'. We come now to the 'imperfect' verb, which is used to describe incomplete actions taking place at the moment of speech ('he is eating'), to describe habitual, or 'tenseless' actions ('he eats breakfast at 7.00 a.m. every day', 'he eats a lot'), and to describe future actions or intentions to act ('he'll eat with us tonight'). For all these various English tense forms, Arabic uses the imperfect verb.