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The Spanish verb "ir" in El Pretérito Imperfecto in Spanish
In Spanish, to express "was/were going to [do something]" in order to talk about:
- actions that were going to happen
- actions that were about to happen
- planned actions or events
we use:
Have a look at some examples:
Yo iba a coger el autobús pero he decidido ir andando.I was going to take the bus but I decided to go on foot.
Mi hermano iba a estudiar medicina pero a última hora cambió de opinión.My brother was going to study medicine but he had a last minute change of heart.
As you can see, sometimes this structure is used to simply say what you were going to do, what you were about to do, or what you had planned to do.
Notice in this example that despite using El Pretérito Imperfecto which is a past tense we are referring to a "future" event.
Despite literally saying "I was going to" it means it "is going to happen".
A common mistake is to use the literal translation of "was going to" with:
estaba yendo a /era yendo a
instead of "iba a"
See also:
- Conjugate ir in the imperfect tense in Spanish (El Pretérito Imperfecto)
- Conjugate in the near future in Spanish with ir a + infinitive (El Futuro próximo)
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