Imperfect or Preterit?

Question

If I am talking about how I went to the beach. and I am talking about how there were a lot of people and that it was warm out, I should imperfect tense? right? Thanks

Answer 1

It's more a question of whether or not you wish to indicate the time frame to which you went to the beach. If you were to say:

Yo fui a la playa ayer.

That is correct, because you are indicating that you went yesterday. If you were to say:

Yo iba a la playa todos los días con mis amigos.

That would be imperfect because you are talking about a repeated action in the past.

The question about weather, well, that is imperfect.

The people, once again, depends on if you use ayer, or todos los días. If you said:

Hubo muchas personas en la playa ayer.

That would be fine. But, if you said:

Había mucha gente en la playa cada vez que yo iba.

You would once again use the imperfect because the action is not determined in a specific time frame.

Answer 2

Often the imperfect tense is used to set the general stage for a specific event:

"Hacía calor ayer cuando llegamos a la playa."

'llegamos' here is the preterite; it's confusing because the 1st person plural in the present is also llegamos.

Answer 3

Hi, Miss. Welcome to the forum.

If you are setting the background story you should use the imperfect tense.

"Había mucha gente" = there were lots of people

"Hacía calor" = It was warm

Answer 4

You would definitely use imperfect for saying that it was warm.

You could use imperfect or preterite for the people.

You would definitely use preterite for you going to the beach (unless 'went to the beach' was not referring to a specific time).