gastar means: to spend, to use up, to wear out
Click to see all conjugation charts of gastar in every tense

In this Spanish conjugation lesson we will learn how to inflect the verb gastar in the Imperfecto tense of the Indicativo mood. It means we will see step by step how to create and translate forms of each grammatical person.

This lesson is specifically about the gastar conjugation. For an overview of all the Simple Tenses conjugation check the Simple Tenses Conjugation Chart.

You may also see this Video Presentation on how to conjugate verbs in Imperfecto. It’s embedded below, but using the above link you will find additional information on conjugation in this tense and explanation of exceptions and special cases.

How to translate Imperfecto to English

Notice that the phrases in English provided below next to each conjugation are not direct translations from Spanish to English. They are usually the closest general equivalents. The example differences are:

• In Spanish conjugation, there is the form usted in the third person singular. But this person does not translate to the English third person singular. It translates to the so called formal you and uses the inflected form which is most often represented as he/she/it in English conjugation charts.
• Similar situation happens in the third person plural, where ustedes translates to the English plural formal you but uses the form which corresponds to the they form in English.
• Tenses are used differently in Spanish and English, so the actual translation should always take into account the context and focus on translating the meaning, not just words.
• In both languages each verb may have multiple meanings and not every meaning translates directly to the other language. Here also, the context and focusing on the particular meaning helps to create the most accurate translation.

Note the timeline

The ability to accurately locate the intended position on the timeline is an important skill for proper use of tenses. So pay attention to the timeline in our lessons and visualize it while listening, speaking, writing and reading. After some practice you will be capable of selecting the right tense to use much easier.

Step by step instructions

Imperfecto belongs to the simple tenses group, which means that all of its conjugated forms are one word long. There are also compound (compuesto) tenses in the Spanish language, where each conjugated verb form consists of two words.The verb gastar has regular conjugation in the Imperfecto tense of the Indicativo mood. It means that this verb follows the basic rules for its group (-ar) without any exceptions. This tense is really easy, as there are only three exceptions! The basis for this conjugation is the stem of the verb, so we need to start by splitting the infinitive into a stem and an ending. It’s really easy to do. Just remove two letters from the end of the infinitive and you have the ending — one of -ar, -er or -ir. What’s left is the stem. So for our verb:

• the stem is: gast-
• and the ending is: -ar

Use the stem gast- in each person as the basis for conjugation, the common prefix or root that each of the forms begins with. Next, add to this regular stem the endings specific to each person. Check out the image showing all the endings. Notice both the shapes and colors of the letters. They are arranged to help you find patterns and make it easier to remember these endings.Each grammatical person has a specific ending in each of the three conjugation groups -ar, -er, -ir. Add the regular ending -aba for the first person singular to create gastaba:

• yo gastaba – I spent

Similarly add the regular ending -abas for the second person singular to create gastabas:

• tú gastabas – you spent

And again add the regular ending -aba for the third person singular to create gastaba:

• él gastaba – he spent
• ella gastaba – she spent
• usted gastaba – (formal) you spent

Again add the regular ending -ábamos for the first person plural to create gastábamos. Note difference in spelling

Only the first person plural has an accent here.

This difference exists only in case of the verbs from the -ar group. Other groups always have an accented i in the ending in this tense.So add the accent to get gastábamos:

• nosotros gastábamos – we spent
• nosotras gastábamos – (feminine) we spent

And similarly add the regular ending -abais for the second person plural to create gastabais:

• vosotros gastabais – (plural) you spent
• vosotras gastabais – (feminine, plural) you spent

Again add the regular ending -aban for the third person plural to create gastaban:

• ellos gastaban – they spent
• ellas gastaban – (feminine) they spent
• ustedes gastaban – (formal, plural) you spent

Hurray! The conjugation is now done. Put together, the conjugation chart looks like this:

yo	gastaba	I spent
tú	gastabas	you spent
él/ella/usted	gastaba	he/she/it spent
nosotros/nosotras	gastábamos	we spent
vosotros/vosotras	gastabais	you spent
ellos/ellas/ustedes	gastaban	they spent

Click to see all conjugation charts of gastar in every tense
But do not end your session yet – it is very important to repeat and practice the material in order to remember it. Check below for some links.

Next Steps to Perfection To practice this conjugation and test yourself check this Conjugation Exercise or the Memory Game To see other conjugation lessons for this verb choose another tense: PresentePretéritoCondicionalFuturoPretérito Perfecto CompuestoPretérito PluscuamperfectoFuturo PerfectoCondicional PerfectoPretérito Perfecto Compuesto (subjuntivo)Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto A (subjuntivo)Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto B (subjuntivo)Futuro Perfecto (subjuntivo)  For exercises and examples related to gastar visit our Exercise section To see conjugation charts in all tenses for gastar visit the Conjugator To explore other learning materials visit the Study section

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