Imperfect confusion

Question

Hola Pues, estaba hablando con mi amiga española, y le he dicho: "despues de 6 horas de eso, tenía muchas ganas de estar allí."

¿Es correcto decir: tenía, o debe ser tuve? Ya que la acción ha terminado ... pero mi profesora nos enseñó que con las emociones, siempre tienes que usar el imperfecto. Y además, ¿"tenía muchas ganas" es un detalle, verdad, no una acción?

Answer 1

"tener ganas de" es una modismo que significa "to have a desire" en inglés. Por eso, es como una emoción, y se usa el imperfecto para el pasado.

gracias :) - june10, May 9, 2012

De nada. - Noetol, May 9, 2012

Answer 2

You started off your sentence with "after six hours of that..."

"tener ganas de" is usually used in the imperfect tense because it describes a person's state or his/her feelings rather than indicating that a person has done a verb.

...tenía muchas ganas de estar allí. - I felt like being there.

You can use the preterite in your example too, but with a different verb...

...me entraron muchas ganas de estar allí. - I felt the urge to be there. (I didn't want to at first, but after six hours, I felt like doing it.)

That literally means "The will to be there entered me." In that example, "ganas" is doing the verb. "ganas" is doing the verb once, and it's clear when it starts and stops doing the verb, so the preterite tense is used on the verb "entrar."

I hope this helps

Hey GW - long time no see :) Nice answer - Kiwi-Girl, May 10, 2012

Igualmente ;) - GuitarWarrior, May 10, 2012

Answer 3

Although I agree with Noetol that generally 'tenía' ganas in the imperfect would be the most common way to express 'desiring' to (do something, be somewhere etc) in the past I wouldn't say that it's impossible to use the preterite form. That would work when you're stressing that those feelings ended for some reason, Tuve ganas de irme pero hoy soy feliz.

Or I think that using the preterite form would let the hearer know that you did desire to do something but didn't or couldn't. Eg. Tuve ganas de informarles que podían ir conmigo. or Y tuve ganas de gritar que te amaba pero tu no estabas junto a mi.

Just my 2 cents