fue or era ?
well im a beginner and just started learning spanish yesterday,, and i want to know how do you say "yesterday was friday" in spanish? which is correct "ayer fue viernes" or "ayer era viernes? -thanks
4 Answers
If you just want to say, yesterday was Friday, full stop, then you would use fue.
But if you want to narrate something that happened on Friday and use Friday as a kind of backdrop to describe something that was going on on Friday you would use era.
If you use era it sounds like more info is about to follow. It would be unlikely to use era with a specific time word like yesterday.
Picture a story teller sitting in his chair by the fire, a big book open in his hands, it was Friday ... the rain was pouring down and Pedro was tucked up in bed drinking a hot chocolate ..... This is the kind of situation that you'd use era, the imperfect, unfinished tense.
Both are correct in this context. But fue means a short period of time or/and a finished action. And era is for longer periods or action in progress.
Parece que fue ayer cuando terminé la carrera. (It seems it was yesterday when I finished my degree.)
Era viernes cuando decidí salir a pasear. (It was friday when I decided to go for a walk.)
If you just started learning Spanish yesterday, I would not focus too much on particular things like this. You are talking about the preterite vs. imperfect tense. That is a tough subject because it can't be explained in a simple grammar rule, just guidelines. This is also true to "por" vs. "para." Fear it not though! You will catch on to these soon enough!
Just like that?
Ambas son correctas.
You need to add context in order to know the difference.
