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The action is portrayed as being in progress, or as occurring in the past time (since all imperfects are in the indicative).

1. Progressive (Descriptive) Imperfect [ continually ]
The imperfect is often used to describe an action or state that is in progress in past time from the viewpoint of the speaker.

• Mark 9:31 He was teaching his disciples and was saying to them

2. Ingressive (Inchoative, Inceptive) Imperfect [ began doing ]
The imperfect may be used to stress the beginning of an action.

• Matt 5:2 And when he opened his mouth, he began teaching them.

Like the present tense, several imperfects involve a time-frame that is fairly broadly conceived.

3. Iterative Imperfect [ kept on ]
The imperfect is sometimes used for repeated action in past time. It is similar to the customary imperfect, but it is not something that regularly recurs.

• John 19:3 They kept on saying, "Hail!"

4. Lifestyle (Customary, General) Imperfect [ used to, as a lifestyle ]
The imperfect is used to indicate a regularly recurring activity in past time (habitual), or a state that continues for some time (general).

• Luke 2:41 And his parents use to go [or customarily went ] into Jerusalem each year.
• Col 3:7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived [as a lifestyle]

5. Conative (Voluntative, Tendential) Imperfect [ wanted to, could almost ]
This use of the imperfect tense occasionally portrays the action as something that was desired (voluntative), attempted (conative), or at the point of almost doing something (tendential).

• Matt 3:14 but John was trying to prevent him

6. Imperfect Retained in Indirect Discourse
Like the present, the imperfect can be retained from the direct discourse in the indirect.

• John 2:22 His disciples remembered that he had said this.