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Old August 08, 2011, 09:10 PM
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wrholt wrholt is offline
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Adding to Rusty's comment: the choice of preterite (aka "simple perfect") or imperfect ALWAYS affects the meaning of the verb. Sometimes the effect is very subtle or makes very little difference; sometimes the effect is so great that one must use completely different words to translate the verb into English. The other threads that Rusty mentions should be an excellent start in understanding the distinction between them.
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