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The preterite and the imperfect contrasted

Overview

Spanish uses two indicative tenses to refer to the past: the preterite and the imperfect. The two tenses are not interchangeable without altering the meaning of the sentences, and each one possesses its own well-defined logic. At their most basic level, the preterite tells what happened, and the imperfect describes how things were.

The preterite tense is often referred to as the narrative past. It reports discrete, completed past actions, which may have occurred once or many times and may have had infinitely short or unimaginably long duration. The preterite is often, but not always, associated with key words such as ayer, anteayer, el año pasado, de repente, comenzar, empezar, and iniciar, among others.

Imperfect

Where the preterite tense is often referred to as the narrative past, the imperfect tense is often called the descriptive past. Its focus is on less discrete units of activity. Rather, the imperfect reports past repeated actions or things that "used to" happen, and it describes activities and conditions amid the passage of time. The imperfect is often, but not always, associated with key words such as siempre, mucho, a menudo, frequentemente, a veces, and soler.

The preterite and the imperfect used together

The two past tenses often occur within the same sentence. When this happens something that is unfolding in time is punctuated by the occurence of some other action. That is, a contextual situation is interrupted by a discrete action:

Special meanings

Several verbs in Spanish when expressed in one past tense change their meaning noticeably when expressed in the other. It should be mentioned, however, that the careful user will notice that these "special meanings" are not inconsistent with the general guidelines on this and other pages for the use of the preterite and the imperfect. They are noted here simply because they are commonly used verbs and because they provide convenient pairs for comparison purposes.

See also

Preterite tense
Imperfect tense
Verbs