Taking tempurature- Preterit or Imperfect?
In the sentence "El enfermero le tomaba la temperatura al paciente." why is the imperfect used? I understand this to be a one time action, completed in the past so thought it would be preterit.
It is a stand alone question (fill in the correct form of the verb) so has no other context to go with it.
Can anyone explain so I can understand? Thank you.
4 Answers
I am in agreement with the other answers.
With some kind of context we could say, ie: Durante las dos semanas que estaba en el hospital, el enfermero le tomaba la temperatura al paciente. ("estuvo" could also be used if we know that the patient is now out of the hospital).
With no context there is no right or wrong answer between imperfect and preterite. Your understanding of these two tenses seems to be correct, in fact you probably understand it better than the fool who wrote this test question.
If you want to say that he used to take the temperature use tomaba. Tomaba can be translated as he used to take.
Él le solia tomar......=él le tomaba......= He used to take .....
If you want ro say that he took the temperature use tomó.
Él tomó. ..= He took
Por favor corrige mi inglés.
You would also use the imperfect if you wanted to say: the nurse was taking the patient's temperature.
El enfermero le tomaba la temperature al paciente
= The nurse was taking /used to take the patient's temperature.
Possible context
Un médico: "¿Qué hacía el enfermero? "(A doctor: What was the nurse doing?)
una recepionista: "El enfemero le tomaba la temperatura al paciente"
(A receptionist: The nurse was taking the patient's temperature) ___ ______ _____ ______ _________ _______ ___________ ________
Use of the preterite (simple past)
El enfermero le tomó la temperature al paciente
= The nurse took the patient's temperature
I hope this helps 
There's a terrible misconception when trying to do a translation.
- Imperfect forms in Spanish can be derived from past simple form in English.
tomaba/tomó = took. This means that depending on the context, we tend to use the one that suits the best. - Imperfect forms in Spanish can be used for mentioning general repeated actions in the past, or repeated actions in the past in a particular time.
Having said this, the utterance el enfermo le tomaba la temperatura al paciente does not implicate a general habit or repeated action in the past. Hence, saying something like the nurse used to take the patient's temperature makes it completely senseless.
Another case is to say el enfermero le estaba tomando la temperatura al paciente. This one talks about the continuity of the action, served as background scene, which is a longer action. It's different when saying el enfermero le tomaba la temperatura al paciente, the latter is not focused on the continuity of the action, rather, it's on how many times was the action done in the past, in that particular time.
