Which past tense to use?
Thursday July 19, 2007
As one of the participants in our forum suggested recently, the grammatical rules for use of the two simple past tenses of Spanish, the preterite and the imperfect, aren't always clear or seem not to coincide with the language as it is used in real life. You may have been told, for example, that the imperfect is used when referring to past repeated actions — but that's only partly true. When the rule is formulated that way, there are major exceptions. Learn more...
Comments
I found this amazingly concise article on the preterite/imperfect distinction. It is actually a research paper on Spanish textbooks and suggests six easy-to-remember principles to help students understand the difference.
http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/35761630101354941976613/p0000004.htm#22
¡Hola! I’m a Mexican that lived in this country (México) for 30 years and I disagree with the use of preterite tense in the sentence cuando era estudiante, Pablo se durmió(wrong) se dormía(correct)todas las noches. We use the imperfect tense. The example of cuando era niño..is exactly the way we use the verb tense, same as in English. hasta luego