Preterite vs Imperfect
Preterite or imperfect? See the same verb in both past tenses side by side, learn the rule for choosing, and test yourself with a mini-quiz.
The rule in one sentence
Preterite = what happened (completed, bounded, moves the story forward). Imperfect = what was happening (ongoing, habitual, background). Same past, different lens — and Spanish forces you to choose every time.
Mini-quiz: which past tense?
1. Something that happened once and finished — yesterday I watched a film.
2. Something you used to do every summer as a child.
3. The background scene when something else interrupted — it was raining when the phone rang.
4. A chain of events in a story — I arrived, I sat down, I ordered.
Try next: Tense Comparison · Verb Tense Timeline · Conditional Helper
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