Gerund and preterite...

[hola]

am i right when i say that you can not use the gerund with the preterite?

[Elaina]

I would say no.........but I leave this question to my more "grammar oriented" comrades.......

Even so, I would still say NO!

[poli]

I think it's safe to not use gerunds in Spanish at all. Find another way.
In Spanish the use of the infinitive replaces the gerund.

[Rusty]

The definition of a gerund is a noun derived from a verb. These nouns have an -ing ending, like speaking and eating, but are used as nouns. In the sentences that follow, the gerunds are also the subjects:
Speaking is not one of my favorite things to do.
Eating is something I enjoy.

El hablar = hablando
El comer = comiendo
Here we have two translations of the English gerunds I used in the first paragraph. Both words on either side of the equals sign have the same meaning. The one on the right is a gerund. They can be used as nouns, just like their English counterpart.

Don't confuse the gerund with the present participle, hablando and comiendo.
The present participle has the same spelling and meaning, but is not a noun. It is the second piece of a continuous tense verb (estar + present participle).

You can use the preterite form of estar with a present participle. You can use all the forms of estar with a present participle.

[Tomisimo]

This has already been explained by previous posters, but I often find multiple explanations helpful, so I'll continue. In English the gerund and present participle look the same:

Writing is something you do with pencil and paper. (gerund)
I was writing with a pencil. (present participle)

In Spanish the gerund and present participle don't look the same, they are different.

El escribir es algo que haces con lápiz y papel. (gerund)
Yo estuve escribiendo con un lápiz. (present participle)

So you can't use the gerund with the preterit, but you can use the present participle.

[Rusty]

I may have misled when I described the gerund. The English gerund is a noun derived from a verb and has an -ing ending. The Spanish gerund ends in -ando or -endo, but isn't used as a noun. Using the infinitive as a noun, as David and I pointed out, is the Spanish equivalent of the English gerund.

The following should have been in my post to make it more clear:

El hablar = speaking
El comer = eating

Here we have the translations of the English gerunds I used in the first paragraph. Both words on either side of the equals sign have the same meaning.

Don't confuse the gerund with the present participle, hablando and comiendo. The present participle is the second piece of a continuous tense verb (estar + present participle).

Sorry about the confusion I may have caused.

[Jessica]

*shakes head no*

[Tomisimo]

Originally Posted by Rusty

I may have misled when I described the gerund. The English gerund is a noun derived from a verb and has an -ing ending. The Spanish gerund ends in -ando or -endo, but isn't used as a noun. Using the infinitive as a noun, as David and I pointed out, is the Spanish equivalent of the English gerund.

Unless I'm mistaken, and I might be, in English when the -ing form of a verb is used as a noun it's referred to as a gerund, and when it's a verb form (the present progressive) then it's referred to as a present participle. So the -ing, -iendo -ando forms of verbs are present participles, unless, and only in English, they are used as nouns, then they're gerunds. But then again, I may be off my rocker.

[Rusty]

I took my definition of the English gerund from more than three sources. All said that it is a noun that is derived from a verb. My previous thoughts agreed with yours - that a present participle acting like a noun is referred to as a gerund. But the sources I looked at call a gerund a noun that is derived from a verb, so I used their definition. Either way, a present participle and a gerund look identical. They merely serve different functions in a sentence.

[Tomisimo]

Yeah, sometimes I think trying to over-analyze grammatical terms can be counterproductive and actually keep people from learning rather than helping But we do use lots of gerunds in English, there are at least three in the previous sentence alone!