2.11.6 What is the preterite/imperfect distinction

You have no doubt learned many different ways to figure out if a given context needs the preterite or the imperfect.  All the different techniques that exist, are based on the grammatical distinction between the two forms:

Preterite=an action completed in the past

Imperfect=an action that is incomplete or ongoing in the past

English does not have preterite and imperfect, it has the simple past and the past progressive (which Spanish has too!).  In English, the past progressive can be used to express some of what the imperfect expresses.  But many times in English, this distinction is expressed via other words in a sentence.  For example:

I went to the store and on the way, I saw my friend Elena.

Caminaba a la tienda y (en el camino) vi a mi amiga Elena.

In the English example, “on the way” is necessary in order to indicate that the act of seeing Elena happened in the middle of walking to the store.  In the Spanish example, (en el camino) is in parentheses because it’s unnecessary.  It adds more information and it’s interesting but by using the preterite and the imperfect, that’s already clear.  “I” did one action and another action happened in the middle.  “I” was not done walking to the store when I saw my friend.

What are some ways to think about the preterite imperfect distinction?

There are several well-known techniques to try to help nonnative speakers think about the preterite imperfect distinction.

One that is particularly useful is the concept of backgrounding and foregrounding.  In this way of thinking about preterite & imperfect, any background information in the story you’re telling with your use of the preterite and imperfect is expressed with the imperfect and the action of the story needs the preterite.

Let’s look at an example from the Rigoberta Menchú text in this chapter.  Menchú is telling us the story of her family traveling from the Guatemalan highlands where they live, down to the lowlands near the coast where they work.  What verbs does she use to talk about this journey?  How many are in preterite?  How many are imperfect?

“Desde chiquita, me llevaba mi mamá cargada a la finca. Ella decía que, cuando yo tenía más o menos unos dos años, obligadamente me llevaban al camión porque no quería entrar. Era a la mitad del camino cuando ya me cansaba de tanto llorar, porque me daba miedo. La ida en el camión es de lo que me recuerdo. Es algo para mí que no sabía ni cómo era y me daba tanta pena porque soy yo una persona que me hace mucho mal el mal olor y todo eso.”

This fragment is from the first paragraph of the reading in this chapter.  The purpose of this part of the narration is to set up the background information of her story.  She’s setting the stage.  And to do that she used eleven verbs in the imperfect and zero in the preterite.

Compare that fragment with the following one in which Menchú tells the story of one specific time her family got fired and didn’t get paid:

“Lo que pasó aquella vez cuando nos echaron de la finca. Nos lo contó uno de nuestros vecinos que siguió en la finca. Cuando recibieron ellos el pago, dice, que el caporal nos incluyó entre los mozos como si estuviéramos acabando el mes. Entonces claro, eran tres personas: mi mamá, yo y mi hermanito, que formábamos casi el trabajo de una persona, y el vecino que también nos acompañó para regresar. Dice que cuando se acabó el mes, el caporal tenía incluido como que si nosotros hubiéramos acabado el mes y como que si nosotros hubiéramos recibido el sueldo que teníamos que recibir. El sueldo que nos tocaba a nosotros le tocó al caporal.”

In this fragment, Menchú uses both preterite and imperfect to tell her story.  Background information and things that didn’t get finished are in the imperfect but things that did happen and were done and over in that time frame are in the preterite.  There are several uses of the imperfect subjunctive in this fragment but we won’t cover the imperfect subjunctive until chapter 4 so it will wait until then.

Let’s try creating a story:

In this image, we see several small children.  One boy has a book up to his face and a girl seated slightly in front of him is holding a book but it is not open.  What kind of story can we tell?  We’ll call the boy Esteban and the girl Miranda in this story.

Esteban recibió su libro primero.  Leía su libro cuando su compañero lo interrumpió.  Hablaba con su amigo.  Mientras él hablaba, Miranda recibió un libro también y no lo abrió.   Miraba la tapa posterior.