The correct use of past tense...

Question

Could someone please tell me if I have used the correct preterite tense for the following sentence. " Fui muy preocupada pensé que no pude salir" or should it be the imperfect tense "Ira muy preocupada pensaba que no podía salir" Gracias.

Answer 1

Preocupada is an emotion and so is generally imperfect.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no connection between expressing an emotion and the imperfect (or any other tense, for that matter).

So- "Estaba aburrido a veces la semana pasada", but "Estuve aburrido a las ocho de la mañana ahora" (please correct) - Stadt, Oct 5, 2010

http://www.elearnspanishlanguage.com/grammar/verbs/preteritovsimperfecto.html - Jennipickles, Oct 6, 2010

Answer 2

Era muy preocupada porque pensaba que no podría salir. I'm not a native speaker and I'm learning too, but that's how I would say it. Preocupada is an emotion and so is generally imperfect. I also switched "poder" into conditional.

"era" is wrong: "estaba" - LoaEtayo, Oct 5, 2010

Answer 3

I need to add that this is just a situation for an conversation I am constructing, it's not real!