Preterite vs Imperfect

Time travel not included

So what is the preterite?

a grammatical tense that denotes events and places that occurred in the past

So what is the imperfect?

a grammatical tense that denotes events and places that occurred in the past

What's the difference?

Preterite 

indicates a completed past action with a definitive beginning and end

Imperfect

indicates a past action or event without a definitive beginning or end.

With imperfect...

• Set the stage

• To talk about a past action which was repeated habitually

• to communicate mental and/or physical states in the past

• to describe people in the past

• to tell someones age in the past

When to use the preterite

• Completed actions

• Single events (in most cases)

• Actions apart of a chain of events

• actions repeated a specific amount of times

To help you conceptualize it...

It's

quiz
time

Imperfect trigger words

a menudo

a veces

algunas veces

cada dia...

con frecuencia

casi nunca

de vez en cuando

generalmente

mientras

siempre

rara vez

por lo general

generalmente

por un rato

varias veces

tantas veces

todos los días

mucho

nunca

It's

quiz
time