mentir Imperfect Conjugation
mentir — to lie
Mentir is regular in the imperfect: mentía, mentías, mentía, mentíamos, mentíais, mentían.
mentir Imperfect Forms
When to Use the Imperfect
Use the imperfect to describe a person who used to lie habitually in the past or to set the scene ('he was lying when I walked in').
Notes on mentir in the Imperfect
Mentir follows the standard -ir verb pattern for the imperfect. There are no stem changes here.
Example Sentences
De niño, yo mentía mucho.
As a child, I used to lie a lot.
yo
Sabíamos que ellos mentían.
We knew that they were lying.
ellos/ellas/ustedes
Tú siempre mentías sobre tus notas.
You always used to lie about your grades.
tú
Common Mistakes
Mistake: Mientía.
Correct: Mentía.
Why: Learners often try to carry the present tense stem change (ie) into the imperfect, but the imperfect is regular.
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Related Tenses
Present
yo: miento
Mentir is a stem-changing verb (e > ie) in all forms except nosotros and vosotros.
Preterite
yo: mentí
Mentir changes its stem from 'e' to 'i' only in the third-person forms: mintió and mintieron.
Future
yo: mentiré
Mentir is completely regular in the future tense; just add the endings to the infinitive.
Conditional
yo: mentiría
The conditional of mentir is regular: mentiría, mentirías, mentiría, mentiríamos, mentiríais, mentirían.
Present Subjunctive
yo: mienta
Mentir changes to 'ie' in most forms, but importantly uses 'i' in the nosotros/vosotros forms.
Imperfect Subjunctive
yo: mintiera
The imperfect subjunctive of mentir uses the 'i' stem: mintiera, mintieras, mintiera...
Affirmative Imperative
yo: miente
Use 'miente' for informal commands and 'mienta' for formal ones.
Negative Imperative
yo: no mientas
All negative commands for mentir use the present subjunctive forms.