Pregnancy, imperfect tense?

Question

I'm trying to write a note to a Spanish speaking family member, saying this:

"When I was pregnant, I was never sick".

I was going to write, "Cuando estuve embarazada....". I decided to check it on Google Translate, and it said:

"Cuando estaba embarazada..." why the imperfect? Pregnancy has a very definite beginning, and very very very definite end. So I thought it should be the preterite, "estuve".

I am rapidly losing faith in Google Translate.

What do you think?

Gracias.

Answer 1

Good question. The correct answer is.... both tenses are correct!!!!

You'd use "estaba" if you want to tell more things about your pregnancy without going to its culmination, and you use "estuve" if you intend to go straight away to the end of the story. So, how do you want to tell you story? Do you have any interest in saying that you were not sick during the entire pregnancy right to the end, or just while you were pregnant, without giving precise details about when? This differentiation is very hard to make in English, but it is common in Spanish. This is not about right and wrong, but a matter of perspective.

So just as long as I use estar, and not ser, right? - amykay, Oct 6, 2010

I actually wasn't going to go into any details about it, just sort of that not every woman gets sick... - amykay, Oct 6, 2010

Answer 2

"cuando estaba embarazada, nunca estuve descompuesta" Im a native hope it helps you

Answer 3

Thank you to you both! Google Translate said:

Cuando yo estaba embarazada, nunca estuve enfermo.

So their sentence uses both, which threw me too. I was just going to ask her if she was sick (morning sickness, you known pregnancy stuff) and that when I was pregnant, I was never sick.

The imperfect sets the scene for the preteroite event in this sentence. - lorenzo9, Oct 6, 2010

that makes sense to me. Gracias! - amykay, Oct 6, 2010