High School
English has but one simple past tense. Spanish posseses two, the preterit (pretérito) and the imperfect (imperfecto). Of these, the preterit is the one that more closelycorresponds to the English simple past. It is essentially a narrative tense, presenting facts viewed as completed and undivided whole, regardless of duration. The imperfect tense corresponds to the Englishpast progressive. Consequently, the imperfect indicates that an act or state is viewed as being in progress.
Iniciative, Imperfective and Terminative Aspect. The standard rules concerning the useof the preterite and imperfect in Spanish regularly fail to take into consideration that all events, at least theoretically, have a beginning, a middle, and an end. They also fail to distinguishbetween actions which are reported as anterior to the moment of speaking and actions which are represented as simultaneous with some recalled axis of orientation, that is, a recalled frame of refference.There are three things the person reporting at the moment of speaking can say: an event began at this point, that an event was going on and that an event terminated at this point.
Pretérito
*Describe acciones que comenzaron y terminaron en el pasado.
El sábado pasado salí a pasear y visité a unos amigos.
* Cuando un cambio repentino en la condición, estado, o acción en el pasado.
Alrecibir una carta de mi familia, me puse muy contento.
De repente su cara se puso blanca de terror.
* Indica la interrupción de otra acción que ya estaba en desarrollo en el pasado.
Todosdormíamos cuando sonó el teléfono.
Imperfecto
* Describe una acción en desarrollo en el pasado. Genenralmente corresponde a la construcción gramatical was/were + an -ing form of the verb, en inglés.Ayer a las tres de la tarde preparaba un informe para mi clase.
* Expresa estados emocionales, físicos o mentales en el pasado. (state verbs)
Después del partido de tenis de ayer, estaba...
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