Indefinido vs Imperfecto
You own both past tenses now, and the only question left is which one to reach for. Here is the whole thing in one line: the indefinido — the tense you learned as el pretérito, hablé, comí, viví — says what happened; the imperfecto says what was going on. Ayer llovió. is the report of an afternoon that is finished and filed. Llovía cuando salí. puts you inside the rain, on your way out the door. In a real story they work as a pair: the imperfecto paints the room, the weather, the age and the habits, and the indefinido drops the events into that room one at a time.
What happened, and what was going on
Before you conjugate anything, ask one question: does this sentence move the story forward, or does it hold the story still? Moving forward is the indefinido. Holding still is the imperfecto. Comí a las dos. moves — lunch happened, it ended, next. Comía a las dos. holds — two o'clock was lunchtime back then, every day, and nothing has happened yet. The same verb, the same afternoon, two completely different jobs. Notice what the imperfecto refuses to tell you: when the thing ended. Trabajaba en un restaurante says nothing about whether you still do. Trabajé en un restaurante shuts the door: that was a stretch of your life, and it is over. One warning about names, because textbooks disagree and you will meet all of them: el pretérito, el pretérito indefinido and el pretérito simple are three labels for the same tense — the one from your preterite lesson. El imperfecto is the other one. Nothing new is being introduced today; you are learning to choose.
The backdrop and the event
The sentence shape you will use more than any other puts both tenses side by side, one clause each: Mientras cocinaba, oí un ruido. Cuando llegué, mi abuela cocinaba. The imperfecto clause is the scenery, already running when the camera arrives; the indefinido clause is the thing that cuts in. English blurs this — 'I was cooking' and 'I cooked' both turn into a vague past when people speak fast — but Spanish keeps the two apart and a listener hears the difference immediately. Two rules of thumb fall straight out of it. Two verbs in the imperfecto are two things going on at once: Llovía y los pájaros no cantaban. Two verbs in the indefinido are a chain, one after the other: Salí, tomé el bus y llegué tarde. And when both tenses share a sentence, the imperfecto is almost always the longer, wider one — the rain, not the door slamming.
Description lives in the imperfecto
Anything that describes rather than reports goes in the imperfecto, and this covers more ground than beginners expect. The weather: Hacía calor. Llovía. Nevaba en la sierra. The clock: Eran las tres de la tarde. — always eran, never fueron, when you are simply setting the time. Age: Tenía seis años. Appearance and mood: La cocina era chiquita. Estaba contenta. Ongoing mental states: No sabía qué hacer. Quería salir. Now watch what happens when the same material becomes an event. Llovía is the afternoon you were living in; Empezó a llover a las tres is the moment the rain arrived; Llovió toda la tarde closes the whole stretch and files it. Estaba contenta is how you felt; Me puse contenta is the second your face changed. The description holds still. The event ticks the clock forward.
The words that tip you off
Certain time expressions travel with one tense and almost never with the other. Pulling toward the indefinido: ayer, anoche, esa tarde, el lunes pasado, el año pasado, en 2019, hace dos años, una vez, un día, de repente. Every one of them nails the verb to a point or a closed stretch. Pulling toward the imperfecto: antes, siempre, normalmente, a menudo, seguido, todos los días, cada año, mientras, cuando era niño, de chico. Every one of them spreads the verb out over a habit or a period. This is a strong pattern, not a law, and the exception is worth knowing: siempre takes the indefinido when the period itself is closed and you are summing it up. Mi abuela siempre fue buena conmigo — a whole life, seen from the outside, finished. Mi abuela siempre cocinaba los domingos — a habit, seen from inside those Sundays.
Five verbs that change meaning
A handful of verbs mean one thing stretched out and another thing at a single point, and the tense is what tells them apart. saber: sabía is 'knew', supe is 'found out'. Supe la verdad esa noche. conocer: conocía is 'was acquainted with', conocí is 'met'. Conocí a Camila en Lima. querer: quería is 'wanted', quise is 'decided to and tried', and the negative is the sharp one — no quise means refused, not 'didn't want'. No quise contestar. is 'I refused to answer'. poder: podía is 'was able to, in general', pude is 'managed to, that time', and no pude is 'tried and failed'. tener: tenía is 'had', tuve is 'got, received'. Tuvimos un problema con el carro. None of this is a trap laid for learners. It is a tool: Spanish gets two verbs out of one, and once you hear it, lo supe and lo sabía stop looking like the same sentence.
And still no he comido
One reminder, because this is where a European textbook will pull you off course. A finished event today takes the indefinido here, even if it happened four minutes ago: ¿Ya comiste?, Hoy me levanté temprano, ¿Qué pasó? The pretérito perfecto you met two lessons back — he comido, he ido — is alive and useful, but its job is experience and open stretches of time: Nunca he ido a Bariloche. He trabajado aquí tres años. The good news for today is that the imperfecto never competes with any of that. Your real choice, in Bogotá or Guadalajara or Buenos Aires, is only ever between the two tenses on this page.
The verbs of the day
oír is 'to hear', and it is irregular in a way that repays saying out loud: oigo, oyes, oye, oímos, oyen. In the indefinido a y shows up in the third person: oí, oíste, oyó, oímos, oyeron. In everyday Latin American speech escuchar quietly takes over most of its work — on the phone you will hear No te escucho far more often than No te oigo, and in Mexico the phone is answered with ¿Bueno? llevar is a plain -ar verb meaning 'to carry', 'to take (something somewhere)' and also 'to wear'. It is the mirror of traer: you llevar away from where you are and traer toward it. At any counter in the region you will be asked ¿Para llevar? — to go. It also measures time: Llevo dos años acá. seguir is 'to follow' and 'to keep going': sigo, sigues, sigue, seguimos, siguen, with siguió and siguieron in the past. Put an -ando / -iendo form after it — Spanish's answer to English '-ing', -ando on -ar verbs and -iendo on the other two — and it means 'to keep on': Seguía lloviendo. In Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, Siga no más is how you are waved through a door — go right ahead. sonreír shifts its e to í: sonrío, sonríes, sonríe, sonreímos, sonríen, and in the past sonreí, sonrió, sonrieron. empezar shifts e to ie — empiezo, empiezas, empieza, empezamos, empiezan — and the yo form of the indefinido swaps the z for a c: empecé. It takes a before an infinitive: Empezó a llover.
Words for a rainy afternoon
llover and nevar are impersonal: no subject, third person singular, forever. llueve, llovió, llovía; nieva, nevó, nevaba. A hard downpour is un aguacero, a fine drizzle is una llovizna, and the rain is a daily appointment in much of the region. Snow is not: nevar belongs to the Andes, to Bariloche and the south of Chile, and to the volcanoes near Mexico City, which is exactly why Nunca he visto nevar is a sentence millions of speakers can say honestly. el ruido is any noise; hacer ruido is to make it. el pájaro is a bird, and you will hear el pajarito constantly — the -ito is warmth, not size. la cocina is the kitchen and also a country's cooking — la cocina peruana — and in the Southern Cone it is the stove itself, which is la estufa in Mexico and Colombia. Then the four time words. de repente is 'suddenly', and in Peru and Uruguay it doubles as 'maybe': De repente vamos mañana. ya no is 'not anymore': ¿Todavía trabajas ahí? —Ya no. a menudo is 'often' and is perfectly good written Spanish, but out loud the region says seguido — Vamos muy seguido — or a cada rato for something closer to 'constantly'. normalmente is 'usually', alongside por lo general and casi siempre.
