Imperfect Tense:
What used to be?

 

I said that we had (there was to us) a house ἦν ἡμῖν οἶκος
and that there was a park ἦν παράδεισος behind our house.

Here are the imperfect forms of the verb to be:
 
   ἦν     I was 
ἦσθα     you (sg) were 
ἦν  he/she/it was 
ἦμεν  we were 
ἦτε  you were 
ἦσαν  they were 

 

And here the contrasted present/imperfect forms of the to be compounds:
 
Present Tense     Imperfect Tense
πάρ ειμι  I'm present      παρ ῆν  I was present 
πάρ ει  you're present  παρ ῆσθα  you were present 
πάρ εστιν  he/she/it is present  παρ ῆν  he/she/it was present 
πάρ εσμεν  we're present  παρ ῆμεν  we were present 
πάρ εστε  you are all present  παρ ῆτε  you were all present 
πάρ εισιν  They are present  παρ ῆσαν  they were present 

 
Exercise 5:

   Do the same for ἄπειμι I am away, I am absent
   Click here for answer table.

Note: In verbs the accent is usually recessive, i.e. it moves to the antepenult whenever it gets a chance:
      πάρειμι I'm present. But
      παρῆν I was present. Why?

The accent cannot precede the past tense augment because we want to clearly stress the fact that the action took place in the past.


Check-up
What's between [square brackets] is not to be translated

  1. Translate: Did you have a garden [when you were a child]?
  2. Answer the previous question (Did you or didn't you?)
  3. Translate: Were you [personally] present or ( ἢ ) absent at the [last] Olympic games (τὰ Ὀλύμπια)?
  4. Answer the previous question truthfully.
  5. Translate: Are you often absent [from work/home/school]?
  6. Answer the previous question according to choice made