¿Es "Juan está enfermo"?
If ....John is sick.... is Juan esta enfermo, why is John was sick.... Juan estaba enfermo .... instead of Juan estuvo enfermo? Why do we not use the past tense of the verb estar.... estuvo, here? Thank you
When to use past tense of estar.... he was.... estuvo.... estaba? Example given... John was sick appears to be Juan estaba enfermo instead of estuvo, they use estaba.
3 Answers
The imperfect past is probably used because with an illness the duration, beginning and/or end are not momentary events nor where the emphasis is applied. The emphasis is on a state of being of indefinite duration or it's a background event.
However, if we discussed an allergic reaction to some food on ate, where emphasis was place on it's beginning, duration , end, (completion) the preterite (perfected past) would be used.
Unknowingly eating a product containing peanuts I immediately became ill.
I don't believe that the choice between imperfect and preterite tenses are any different with sickness than with any other condition. The reason that the imperfect is more commonly used is that sickness is more often discussed as a state of being of indefinite duration in the past that we are discussing. Most often we do not become immediately sick, immediately recover, know exactly when the illness began and ended, etc.
To use the common analogy, sickness lends itself more to a video clip event in the past rather than a snapshot of the past. However, if you are giving a snapshot view the preterite could be used with a illness.
The title of your topic is misleading since it does not utilize the past tense of estar. I was confused whether this question concerned which past tense to use or whether it questioned whether Ser or Estar was used.
Estuvo is the preterit tense of the verb “estar”. (Call it the simple past tense)
The preterit tense (el pretérito) is one of several past tenses in Spanish and it is used to describe actions completed at one point in the past or that lasted a specific amount of time in the past and are now completed. The preterit is not used to describe habitual or continuous actions in the past with no specific ending or beginning. The imperfect tense is used for these instances. If the habitual action does have a specific beginning and end, the preterit can be used.
You will find more information about this tense here ----> The Preterit The Reference page has additional examples to try to show when to choose the simple past
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Estaba is the Imperfect or past mperfect tense of the verb “estar”. (call it the ongoing past tense)
The imperfect tense (el imperfecto) is one of the several past tenses in Spanish. It is used mainly to describe past habitual actions or to set the scene in the past.
You will find more information about this tense here ----> The Imperfect The Reference page has additional examples to try to show when to choose the ongoing past.
From your question example with Juan, being sick tends to be an ongoing activity and not an event. Because the process of being sick was ongoing, the imperfect tense was used.
Juan estuvo enfermo toda la semana. When we pretend to limit the time during which Juan was ill.
