Past exercise help
Can someone help me and translate 'when I was younger I went swimming'? I think it's cuando yo era pequeño fui a nadar? Also, I played netball is 'Jugué al netball' right? Never sure whether to use past verbs or imperfect when talking about when you were younger!
1 Answer
Can someone help me and translate 'when I was younger I went swimming'? I think it's cuando yo era pequeño fui a nadar? Also, I played netball is 'Jugué al netball' right? Never sure whether to use past verbs or imperfect when talking about when you were younger!
First- you have not filled out your profile. I assume Lucy in your name might indicate female, and so you would need pequeña if that was my recommendation, but here is a great example of the difficulty in helping someone who does not bother to fill out their profile.
Pequeño= little, you can say that that but it is not exactly younger, you are not matching the English that well.
Cuando era más joven.
That even obviates the gender issue.
Did you do it once, or did you used to do it.
If you did it only once, sure, use fui. Otherwise iba. Imperfect for repetitive actions in the past. Jugué al netball is similarly one time, jugaba al netball if repetitive.
For the nadar example, if you do not want to emphasize the going somewhere to do it, you could also say something like:
Cuando era más joven, nadaba mucho. When I was younger, I used to swim a lot.
or to emphasize the difference with preterit:
Cuando era joven, nadé una vez. When I was young, I swam (one time/once).
The era remains imperfect, as it sets the scene for that one time you swam.
