era vs imperfect

Question

So I'd like to know a bit more about when to use the imperfect tense versus just using era all the time. For instance if I wanna say: "I was talking" it seems like I can say: "Yo era hablando". But at the same time it also seems like this is when I'd wanna use the imperfect tense for hablar. So I could say: "Hablaba." Can I use these interchangeably or am I missing something?

Answer 1

"Yo era hablando" doesn't mean anything, yo estaba hablando, on the other hand, means what you said.

The construccion estar+gerund here seems to reinforce the progressiveness of the action expressed by the verb:

Estaba hablando con ella cuando entraron, the conversation was, most likely, interrupted

Hablaba con ella cuando entraron, the nuance here is that you were just talking, that is, describing the situation

Answer 2

So adding to Diagonx's post, here is where you should note the difference between "ser" and "estar". When you describe actions you need to use estar because it isn't something permanent, actions come and go, so to speak.

Next is that when using the imperfect mood you can roughly translate most of those phrases into "was-ing" and "were-ing".

We were talking

Hablábamos

I was walking

caminaba

You can use the imperfect mood of the present progressing (estar+gerund), but it isn't necessarily. Also just as Diagonx said, (possibly) most of the time you use the imperfect mood the actor in the sentence is doing an action that is interrupted by another event:

Corría cuando un extranjero saltó a mí.

All that said, you're asking the right questions, you will be proficient in no time! And you might even learn more about English on your journey!

I hope this helped.

Thank you very much! - hershey964, May 2, 2013

No problem! I'm glad we could help. For more Spanish problems and lectures feel free to visit my blog, vidadescott.blogspot.com - Vida_de_Scott, May 6, 2013