Are "préterito" and indefinite verb tenses the same in Spanish?

Question

Our Spanish teacher has given us an exercise to compare indefinite and imperfect past tenses. I can't find any reference to indefinite tense, is it the same as préterito?

Hi Bbott, I corrected the spelling of the verb tenses in your title. Welcome to the forum! - StuartSD, Feb 16, 2012

Answer 1

"Preterito" means "past tense" in a general way. It's not a tense by itself.

You then have several tenses as (examples with "tener"):

.

Pretérito imperfecto => Yo tenía

Pretérito indefinido => Yo tuve

Pretérito perfecto => Yo he tenido

Pretérito anterior =>Yo hube tenido (Very uncommon, not really used)

Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto => Yo había tenido

Thank you - that makes it a lot clearer - sheila-foster, Feb 16, 2012

Oh wow, this helps out a lot! Thank you so much for this explanation. - jbm345, Apr 18, 2015

Answer 2

I'm not an expert on this, but I did find this explanation on Yahoo :-

"Indefinido is the past perfect tense and is used to describe an action in the past that definitely finished (it was complete - perfect in that sense).

Imperfecto is the past imperfect tense and is used to describe an action in the past that was not finished at the time (it was incomplete or continuing - imperfect in that sense).

Here's an example...

Cuando navegábamos el domingo pasado nos cayó un chaparrón enorme.

When we were sailing last Sunday an enormous rainshower fell over us."

I do hope this helps, but it might be wise to wait a little to see if someone knows more than I do

Great answer Sheila! - StuartSD, Feb 16, 2012

So how does the indefinido differ from the preterite? - jbm345, Apr 18, 2015

Answer 3

Hi Bbot. I believe the indefinite tense your teacher was referring to is the "imperfecto" tense in Spanish (as Sheila suggested above). Here's an article from our Spanish Grammar section on the differences between the imperfect or "imperfecto" and preterit or "pretérito" tenses. Hope this helps!

I have been communicating with the native Spanish speaker on Duolingo about a translation I did. I had put it in the preterite, he corrected it into the imperfect. When I questioned him about it, he said it's not imperfect, it's indefinite. - jbm345, Apr 18, 2015

I have never heard of the indefinite, and so ended up on these pages seeking clarification. I've spent quite a while reviewing the link in your post, but I'm still confused. - jbm345, Apr 18, 2015

The passage is: La aldea de Deventer fue saqueada y quemada por los vikingos en 882. Since he year was specific I had used the preterite in the original translation. Why did he put it in the imperfect (which he calls the indefinite)? - jbm345, Apr 18, 2015

Answer 4

Hi Stuart, that is what I understood the difference between pretenerito and imperfect to be. I got confused today because we had different conjugations for imperfect and indefinite. I didn't copy the indefinite down, I was going to do it at home, but now can't find any reference to an indefinite tense. I'll just use the two past tenses I know and see what happens.

barry