Tener que in imperfect vs. preterite
Hola! I was wondering how you know whether to use the imperfect or the preterite to conjugate "tener que"in the past tense. Gracias!
4 Answers
If you completed the action you had to perform, use the preterite, otherwise use the imperfect.I don't think this is a rule, but more of a suggestion.
Why would you use preterite there? I don't understand. - SonrisaDelSo
Because "use imperfect for habitual actions" is not a rule, but a recipe for potential confusion. The fact that you can use imperfect for habitual actions does not imply that habitual actions require the imperfect, since all past tenses can be used for habitual actions, included the preterite, as I showed in my examples. But the average person makes this kind of generalizations all the time, because we do not think like logicians or mathematicians when we learn a language.
It would be more accurate to say something like : "All past tenses can be used for habitual actions, but imperfect is the one that you are more likely to come across in habitual sentences". While this statement is bullet-proof, it is not particularly useful to the student, because they want rules that they can apply, and this tells you that everything goes, without telling you when to use each tense. That's why students assume that if you want to talk about habitual events, you should use imperfect: because they expect a rule they can apply. The original sentence taken as a rule will give you headaches when you see correct native sentences where the rule simply doesn't work, and the second more accurate version doesn't fail, but doesn't help a lot neither.
Conclusion? Forget about both rules and try one that works! Present tense can be used in both languages for habitual actions, e.g. "I go to the Gym" / "Voy al gimnasio". You can add things like "all the time", "regularly",... but both can be understood as they are with the correct context. These sentences are not focusing on the entire period during which you go to the gym and then stop going, but on the fact that you go often... regardless of how long for or whether you will stop or not. A few years later, you recall this situation, and you can do it in two different ways: exactly like you did then, talking about the habitual action, without considering the length or end point. Imperfect recalls this present situation from your memories, as it happened then. On the other hand, you can take a step back, consider the moment when you used to go to the gym, which was a habitual action, but consider the, say, three years during which you used to go before you got tired of it. You don't need to specify the period, but you are making it very clear that you are thinking of the event as a whole, from beginning to end, and therefore, it is safe to assume that you stopped going to the gym... then (maybe you resumed later on, we don't know). You have considered a habitual action over a definite period of time that reached an endpoint. This is the difference between these tenses, not being habitual or not.
If it was an ongoing/habitual event in the past, "tenía/tenías/etc que ..........." is appropriate.
Sorry to confront you like this, but aren't these sentences in preterite ongoing/habitual?
Tuve que ir todo el tiempo/constantemente.
Tuve que ir todos los días.
I have seen hundreds of learners of Spanish asking why these sentences are written in preterite if they are habitual. My answer is: throw away any book that tells you that imperfect is for habitual actions.
If it was an ongoing/habitual event in the past, "tenía/tenías/etc que ..........." is appropriate.
If it was an event that started and finished in the past, " tuve/tuvo/tuviste/etc que ......" is appropriate.
