Practice of the preterite and imperfect
’ve been giving myself a refresher on my preterite and imperfect
Preterite- is it a one time event that has a completed action to it a clear beginning and end date
Fui al cine con mi novia ayer- I went to the movies with my girlfriend yesterday
because ayer is a word where you’re likely going to use the preterite because it’s referring to like a one time thing that happened
Micheal Jordan Ganó muchos partidos a lo largo de su carrera en el baloncesto- Michael Jordan won a lot of game during his basketball career
This would throw me off at first because I thought we needed to use the imperfect for this because it’s talking about how in the past he constantly won a lot of games because the imperfect he would use something that happened in the past constantly referring to his career which was like a one time thing that happened as opposed to have it been an ongoing thing
Imperfect- is something that you were talk about that was like an ongoing thing in the past something that happened all the time or constantly technically it’s like something that you “used” to do or “use” to happen
Cuando vivía en Panama City, trabajaba en un restaurante- when I lived in Panama City I used to work in a restaurant
The imperfect and is for describing things- la chica era baja y tenía el pelo rubia- the girl was short and she had blonde hair
The imperfect talks about something “was” happening, but there is no clear ending or beginning
hacía mi tarea- I was doing my homework
The preterit interrupts the imperfect- Me tiré un pedo mientras orinaba - I farted while I was peeing