Cuando llegué a casa anoche, las niñas dormían
Cuando empezó a llover, Sara cerró la ventana
Antes de ir a clase esta tarde, los estudiantes almorzaron
Cada verano, Ignacio buceaba
In Spanish, we use the preterite tense to talk about an action in the past, especially with:
- Actions that started and finished at a specific time.
- Chronological actions in the past.
- Events linked to other events
- Events with a specific time reference.
The conjugation for the verbs ending in -ar for the subjects he, she (el, ella) is -ó, and for they (ellos, ellas) is -aron. Sentences two and three use the preterite tense. Sentence number two (Cuando empezó a llover, Sara cerró la ventana) is an action that is linked to another event. Sentence number three (Antes de ir a clase esta tarde, los estudiantes almorzaron) shows chronological actions that finished in the past.
On the other hand, we use the imperfect tense to talk about an action in the past that:
- Does not have a specific time reference in the past
- Happened before another event in the past.
The conjugations for the verbs ending in -ar in the imperfect tense for the subject he, she (el, ella) is -aba, and the conjugation for the verbs ending in -ir for they (ellos, ellas) is -ían. Sentence number one (Cuando llegué a casa anoche, las niñas dormían) describes an action in the past before another action in the past. Sentence number four (Cada verano, Ignacio buceaba) describes a habit in the past.
To sum up, the preterite and the imperfect tense refer to the past. The first refers to complete actions that happened in a specific moment. We use the second one to talk about past events without specific time references or habits.
Learn more about tenses here:
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