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Spanish - estaba viendo vs estuve viendo? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| kaizen Groupie Canada Joined 4902 days ago 48 posts - 52 votes  Studies: French | Message 1 of 3 12 August 2015 at 3:23am | IP Logged |
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I have a Spanish language exchange partner from Madrid, and we were talking on Skype today. I was trying to say something like, "I was looking on the Internet yesterday," and I used "estaba viendo" and he said I should use "estuve viendo". He's not a teacher, so he couldn't clearly explain to me why, but he told me that "estaba viendo" sounds more recent, e.g. a few minutes ago, while "estuve viendo" sounds more appropriate for yesterday.
I'm not so much interested in this specific example, rather in general, can anyone explain the difference of when to use el imperfecto + gerundio (e.g. estaba viendo) and when to use el pretérito + gerundio (e.g. estuve viendo). Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5173 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 2 of 3 12 August 2015 at 10:23pm | IP Logged |
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I would imagine it would be the same as rules governing the simple preterite vs. the simple imperfect. You used "yesterday" in the sentence, which implies the action is done and over. That favors the preterite.
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| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5171 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 3 of 3 13 August 2015 at 3:20am | IP Logged |
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Heigh-ho, let's go! :)
First, if you use either past + gerund, i.e. a "continuous" tense, you're implying that it was an action that went on for some time. Now, this is exactly why (as I often mention, in the absence of additional context to modify the meaning) you would favour use of "estaba" over "estuve", so "estaba + <verb>-ndo" starts off as kind of redundant. However, you add "ayer" there, which adds distance to whatever you did. That is the natural function of "estuve": with no further context, no matter for how long what you did lasted, using "estuve" implies it is over by now. So, if you did it yesterday, you naturally go for "estuve + gerundio". Now, maybe you wanted to link what you did yesterday for a while (A) with something else (B). When did B happen, in connection with A? Let's say B happened WHILE you you were doing A. Then your natural choice would be "Estaba Ando ayer cuando pasó B", "Ayer ocurrió B mientras estaba Ando", or the like. OTOH if B took place after you were finished with A, a very natural way to express that would be "Ayer estuve Ando y luego pasó B." Which brings me to close the circle: if you simply say "Ayer estaba Ando", you're emphasizing so much that it lasted for a while, that you're practically making your interlocutor expect a second event B that would have taken place meanwhile. Edited by mrwarper on 13 August 2015 at 3:22am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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