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Preterite Vs Imperfect | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5983 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes  Speaks: Spanish* | Message 17 of 24 08 December 2008 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | ||
You'd better learn through examples rather than rules, and some of those are useless anyway. You cannot sit down to write an essay or an e-mail and start thinking of rules, even less if you have to speak. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5925 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 18 of 24 08 December 2008 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Listening to how native speakers use it is a good way to get to grips with this tense. I sometimes still think of MT's, 'line in the past, broken line in the past versus the dot past' explanation.
Definitely use it to express used to/would past and anything that implies 'before' refering to a period when things were different than they are now or an elongated time period in the past. Here in Mexico I've only really heard supe used to mean I found out or more commonly the verb enterarse (not to be confused with enterrarse!) and sabía for everything else. Something worth studying in great detail is the difference between ser and estar - books have been written on the subject! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 19 of 24 11 December 2008 at 8:57am | IP Logged | ||
I wouldn't use this mnemonic as the pretérito is also used for weather expressions. "Hizo sol." Also, some recurring actions use the pretérito. E.g. "El hombre la miró un par de veces." Edited by DaraghM on 11 December 2008 at 9:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| samfrances Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4054 days ago 81 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 24 10 November 2013 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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It sounds from this discussion as if there isn't really a conceptual "key" from which the individual use cases follow. Or at least, not one that can be formulated in terms that are useful for the language learner.
So do you just have to learn the individual use cases, read/listen a lot and hope you get a "feel" for the distinction? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4292 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 21 of 24 11 November 2013 at 12:21am | IP Logged | ||
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With weather, I cannot remember having heard <<Hizo sol>>, because that indicates that
the sun was out for a definite moment, but the weather expressions like those are usually in the imperfect because they are utiilised as a description of what was occurring when another event (pretérito indefinido) succeeded, i.e. <<Hacía sol cuando, de repente, se puso a llover>>. So the only way wherein one can use <<Hizo sol>> es something like, <<Entre las 14h50 y 17h20, hizo sol>>, with clear indications of a strict time frame, which in general in any language that sounds like only a meterologist would talk like that. There was a documentary that I watched a while ago, v=UQSZ1l1Z-ys">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQSZ1l1Z-ys, that was titled, <La Mujer que Supo Reinventarse>, which does not mean the exact same as "found out" like, "I found out that the report was delayed" or something, but rather to "find a way to" as one distinct moment in the past disconnected from events in the future. So, "A woman who found a way to reinvent herself" probably fits better. The imperfecto/pretérito indefinido took me more time than mastering the subjunctive; I think it requires a heavy amount of practise and reading to acquaint oneself. Any event occurring a countable amount of times in the past and never occurring again in the present or future usually is pretérito indefinido. Edited by 1e4e6 on 11 November 2013 at 2:50am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4670 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 22 of 24 11 November 2013 at 2:42am | IP Logged | ||
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In European Spanish, many times imperfect is used in the newscast register where preterit would be used in used in speech:
(A tv host showing a photo): ''La Jeep Fan Foto de la semana, nos la enviaba Rafa, ganador del Jeep Adventure Weekend.'' in speech: ''La Jeep Fan Foto de la semana, nos la envio /nos la ha enviado Rafa, ganador del Jeep Adventure Weekend.'' Edited by Medulin on 11 November 2013 at 2:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4292 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 23 of 24 11 November 2013 at 3:42am | IP Logged | ||
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The former does not make much sense to me, but the
presente de perfecto, which is used in both speech and writing in Spain, is used instead of the pretérito indefinido that is used by those in Hispanoamerica. But the imperfecto has a completely different meaning. Edited by 1e4e6 on 11 November 2013 at 3:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5983 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 24 of 24 15 November 2013 at 10:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, just for future reference, I don't think there's anything unusual about "hizo sol". As far as I am concerned it's everyday language. On the other hand the examples that Medulin brought here belong indeed to the language of journalists and no one would use them in normal conversation.
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