Preterite vs imperfect

[Oldman]

I am struggling with preterite vs imperfect. Eventually, I will have the conjugations of each memorized, that isn't the problem I am concerned with. I am struggling with which one to use when, unless it's super obvious.e.g. "when I was a child...."

Anyway, below is an exercise I did and got about half of them correct. ( I don't have a teacher- I'm doing this by myself).

Would someone be so kind to take a look at the following and tell me what I have done wrong and why ?
The exercise is to conjugate the given infinitive in the proper past tense:




Llovía
(Llover) mucho ese día y, por eso,


decidí
(decidir) buscar un taxi. Claro,


habían
(haber) muchas otras personas que también


buscé
(buscar) taxis por el mal tiempo que

hació
(hacer). Por fin, (yo)


encontré
(encontrar) un taxi y subí. Le dije al taxista adónde


quise
(querer) ir cuando de repente


recordé
(recordar) que mi bolsa

estuve
(estar) en una de las tiendas de la plaza. Bajé del taxi y


fui
(ir) corriendo hacia el mercado. Cuando


llegé
(llegar) al mercado,


vi
(ver) mi bolsa. Yo


estuve
(estar) muy contenta.

[Rusty]

Corrections and reasons provided.

Originally Posted by Oldman

Llovía (the preterit is called for in this case - although many narrations about something in the past start out in the imperfect, this past event ties to the next event - both had an end in the past)
(Llover) mucho ese día y, por eso,

decidí (action had an end in the past)
(decidir) buscar un taxi. Claro,

habían (use the singular form, but you chose the correct tense)
(haber) muchas otras personas que también

buscé (should still be relating what was happening (also, wrong person and number (as an aside, you've misspelled busqué)))
(buscar) taxis por el mal tiempo que

hació (should still be relating what was happening)
(hacer). Por fin, (yo)

encontré (action had an end in the past)
(encontrar) un taxi y subí. Le dije al taxista adónde

quise (the preterit form of querer means 'tried' (no longer want))
(querer) ir cuando de repente

recordé (action had an end)
(recordar) que mi bolsa

estuve (describe an ongoing action)
(estar) en una de las tiendas de la plaza. Bajé del taxi y

fui
(ir) corriendo hacia el mercado. Cuando

llegé (wrong spelling of llegué, but you chose the correct tense)
(llegar) al mercado,

vi
(ver) mi bolsa. Yo

estuve (describe a state that was ongoing)
(estar) muy contenta.

[Oldman]

Thanks this is helpful....I think I am struggling with how can an event that was ongoing in the past not have an end. ANd so that since mind is working this way, I think preterite .. Maybe you can help clear up my confusion....Take the last one,,,"I was content"..Is it because even though now he may not be content, we don't know precisely when his feeling of contentedness ended ?

If he had said, I was content for an hour, then it would have been preterite ?

[Rusty]

You describe past events from a certain point of view.
Usually, when telling a story, the imperfect is used because you're describing things as they were transpiring. If your narrative includes an action that ended (stopped, is no longer happening), it's relegated to the preterit. The decisions one makes, for example, have an end, unless you're describing the decision-making process itself (giving a play-by-play). That process would then be an ongoing event. But if the decision-making process is not being described play by play, the decision happened (it had an end).

After the woman found her (shopping) bag, she was content (the predicate adjective with a feminine ending tells us that the story was about a woman). Her happiness is the focus of the narrative at that point. Even though she could very well stop being content, she was content when she found her bag, and that is the point of the story. We leave the storytelling knowing that she was content. It isn't relevant to add that she stopped being happy about finding her bag, because your story ends with her ongoing contentedness.

Being content for an hour is said using the preterit, because 'durante + period of time' is a trigger for using the preterit.

[Oldman]

So I continue to struggle . Here's a paragraph where I have to determine preterite or imperfect on 15 verbs. I'm presenting the paragraph in English, because conjugation isn't my problem ( I'm just a little slow at it)



When I WAS young, I LIVED in the city. I HELPED with the chores and PLAYED with my friends. In school I LIKED history and science . When I WAS five years old, I WENT to the mountains for the very first time. The mountains WERE old and mysterious. When I WAS 6, I TOOK my first visit to the beach. I SWAM in the ocean and WATCHED someone that DIVED. I RETURNED to school and DECIDED to study science for a career.

It's almost a guess for me which verbs are in the preterite - If this was a test I might say the first 6 verbs are imperfect along with the mountains being old and mysterious and I might say all the rest are preterite.... And it might not surprise me if I would do just as well by flipping a coin.

Rusty, if you are out there, AYUDAS por favor

[Rusty]

Write this part in Spanish. That's the whole idea of this thread.

Originally Posted by Oldman

When I WAS young, I LIVED in the city. I HELPED with the chores and PLAYED with my friends. In school I LIKED history and science . When I WAS five years old, I WENT to the mountains for the very first time. The mountains WERE old and mysterious. When I WAS SIX, I TOOK my first visit to the beach. I SWAM in the ocean and WATCHED someone that DIVED. I RETURNED to school and DECIDED to study science for a career.

Remember to keep things in perspective. (Don't mentally jump out of the picture to the present. Keep things in the past where they belong.) If the action was ongoing in the past, or if it was happening but was interrupted when something else happened, it's imperfect. If you are describing a process, a process is ongoing. Otherwise, the action had an end in the past and the preterit is used.
Character traits in the past are always imperfect--was young, was old, was six.
I wrote 'was ongoing' and 'was happening' in bold above so you can see that I used the progressive past tense. Try this trick: if you can substitute the progressive past tense, the past simple form in English is imperfect in Spanish--'was returning' and 'was deciding' don't fit the narrative, so you know these actions had an end in the past and will choose the preterit tense.

Originally Posted by Oldman

Rusty, if you are out there, AYUDAS, por favor.

The second person imperative mood never ends in an 's'.

[Oldman]

well, I may need you dumb it down even further. I get the WAS young, Was 5 or 6 as imperfect. Seems to me that LiIVED,HELPED,PLAYED and LIKED were all on going, so imperfect again. WENT seems to have a beginning and end, so preterite... WERE imperfect. TOOK, SWAM,WATCHED seem to have beginning and end. DIVED, I have no idea, so coin flip. RETURNED seems to have a beginning and end so preterite, and DECIDED is another coin flip for me.....How close am I? What am I thinking wrongly ?

[Rusty]

You got all of them right, except the two where you wanted to flip a coin.
DIVED could be 'was diving', but you didn't spend any time on it, which means it had an end from your perspective. You should use the preterit.
I already pointed out that 'was deciding' doesn't fit (no play-by-play decision process was mentioned in the narrative), so DECIDED is a done deal and takes the preterit tense.

[Oldman]

not sure I get your 'trick' . How does your trick work on, say LIVED or PLAYED , but not on DECIDED? Ayuda me

When he went to the mountains for the first time, it 'feels' like a beginning and an end to "went', since it was his first time....What would have happened had he not included the phrase 'for the first time' ? Would then it be a bit muddled ? SImilarly, he went to the beach for the first time and a bunch of stuff happened....If he had just said went to the beach, are we back in "gray-zone ".

[Rusty]

If your narrative of past action provides details about going to the mountains or the beach, then of course there's a shift from 'ended action' to 'ongoing action'. Otherwise, we wouldn't be listening to details about the process (hiking, biking, walking, etc.). It doesn't matter if it was the first time or not. If you don't go down memory lane (by providing details of the trek to the mountain or the excursion to the beach), the action had an end.
He went to the mountains and he went to the beach. These actions ended.

If I 'was going to the mountains when a deer jumped into view, the first action is "setting the stage" for the second action, and is imperfect. In English, we use the progressive past (was going) to convey the idea of an ongoing process in the past that was interrupted by another action (the deer jumped to where I could see it). The second action had an end (the deer isn't jumping into view over and over).


Ayúdame.
The boy 'was living' in the city and 'was playing' with friends when he was young. These were ongoing, habitual actions, concurrent with the time frame mentioned. He didn't stop living in the city or playing with his friends when he was young. Don't yank yourself out of the setting. Think about the when-I-was-young opening and what was happening at that time.

[Oldman]

I really suck at this. I may just talk in preterite for the rest of my Spanish career.

Once upon a time there WAS a king who HAD five daughters. Of all of them, the youngest WAS the most beautiful. The Princess HAD a ball and always WENT to play alone with this ball next to a pond near the castle. One day the princess LOST her ball in the pond. The princess DID not know how to swim and WAS NOT ABLE to retrieve her ball. The princess WAS sad and STARTED to cry. Suddenly, the princess HEARD a voice say “ what is PASAR here”? Why are you crying ? The Princess DID not know where the voice was coming from but soon SAW a toad. The toad SAID “ I can return the ball if you do me a favor”. The princes ASKED what the favor was. The toad said he WANTED a kiss. The princess DECIDED yes, and WENT to go kiss the toad, Before she could, the toad DOVE into the water and RETRIEVED the ball. Now, the princess HAD to kiss the toad. She CLOSED her eyes and KISSED the toad. Now she KNEW why the toad WANTED a kiss. He TURNED into a prince and they LIVED happily ever after.

My strategy :

I start with the assumption that every verb is preterite because my initial thinking is that all things that occurred in the past actually have had a start and a finish . Then I w for verbs that might have be an exception to this broad assumption. If a discrete beginning and an ending time frame is not obvious, I think it is imperfect.

So sentence one and two - there WAS a king, she WAS the most beautiful ...I'm guessing imperfect because it's too open ended as to when there was a king. and her beauty is ongoing as far as I can tell.

HAD a ball - imperfect ...don't know when she had it or when she didnt have it

PASAR might be imperfect - my coin flip came up heads

DID NOT KNOW where the voice was coming from - a might be imperfect due to my gut feeling

She KNEW why he WANTED a kiss - guessing imperfect for both

LIVED happily ever after - ongoing, so imperfect


DO I even have half of these correct ?

[Rusty]

It is incorrect to think that all things that happened in the past had a start and end. Spanish has two past tenses for a reason. English doesn't, but we are still able to tell a story about things that HAPPENED or WERE HAPPENING in the past.
Don't exit the storytelling.

I also said earlier that characteristics are always imperfect when you speak of them in the past.

The two questions appearing in the story you wrote are not in the past tense at all.
The question with PASAR in it and the question that follows it both use the "present" tense.
"What's going on here? Why are you crying?" The toad SAID these, to be sure, but he didn't use the "past" tense in the questions.
The English questions are technically formed using the present progressive tense. The Spanish equivalents may be asked using either the present tense or the present continuous tense.
«¿Qué pasa (aquí)?» o «¿Qué está pasando (aquí)?»
«¿Por qué llora(s)?» o «¿Por qué está(s) llorando?»

There WAS a king isn't too open ended. It's a characteristic.
The princess WAS beautiful. That's a characteristic.
So these two are said using the imperfect, and you guessed correctly.
Let's tackle the KNEW and WANTED verbs. In the imperfect, they mean KNEW and WANTED. In the preterit, they are usually translated into English as FOUND OUT and TRIED. So, to convey KNEW (or DID NOT KNOW) and WANTED (or DID NOT WANT), you must use the imperfect tense. Therefore, you're guess was correct.
Just abpve the KNEW and WANTED line, you guessed that DID NOT KNOW might be imperfect. Your gut feeling was correct, for the same reason I explained above.

LIVED happily ever after IS certainly ongoing. Good job! If you were to use the preterit there, you'd be saying they are dead.

HAD a ball is imperfect, as you surmised.

You didn't mention anything about WENT. Since in the story it appears as ALWAYS WENT, that is a habitual, repetitious, or ongoing action.

You didn't mention "HAD five daughters." This is a characteristic. If you were to choose the preterit here, the story would be about five daughters who are dead. Gloomy start.

You said nothing about LOST. Did she lose it or was she losing it? How does the story go?

She DID NOT KNOW how to swim (imperfect, because otherwise it would be translated as FOUND OUT).

She WAS NOT ABLE to retrieve the ball. Think in terms of an ongoing event in this case. Because she couldn't swim she couldn't get the ball. If the preterit were used, the meaning would change to TRIED BUT FAILED. She didn't try at all because she couldn't swim.

Becoming sad isn't a characteristic. It's a change from normal. Ask yourself whether the change was ongoing and that more needed to be said about the process, or whether the change happened and nothing more needs to be said. I think you'll make the right choice. The same choice applies to STARTED to cry. The story didn't elaborate on the process (no play by play scenario here).

Using this same kind of logic, I believe you can frame all the rest of the verbs in the correct tense.

[Oldman]

thanks...the verbs that I DID NOT mention, I HAD assumed to be in the preterite. Looks like I somehow DID manage to make some good guesses. Having gone back and LOOKED at your comments again, they APPEARED to be helpful. Oldman WAS and is an extremely handsome fellow

DID NOT - preterite?
HAD assumed- preterite?
DID manage -preterite?
LOOKED - probably preterite, possibly not ?
APPEARED - probably imperfect, possibly not?
WAS extremely - characteristic - imperfect