need help with imperfect and preterite

Question

I need a lot of help with understanding preterite and imperfect

Answer 1

A quick and dirty explanation:

Preterite in Spanish is like English -ed words. I walked, I stumbled. ( I ran, I sat would be irregulars)

Imperfect are like I used to walk, I used to stumble.

Now, go look under learn at resources about these 2 tenses with this in mind.

At least, this is how I got them straight.

or...I was... - Rey_Mysterio, Apr 18, 2012

Answer 2

One way to think of it is that preterite is used for actions that have completed, while imperfect is used for actions that have not completed, or were interrupted by something (else that happened) or were habitual actions (that happened multiple times).

One example of both tenses in action:

Cuando caminaba por el parque, vi un gato negro. (When I was walking through the park, I saw a black cat.)

caminaba - imperfect tense of caminar

vi - preterite tense of ver