Vivia aqui cuando estaba

Question

Hello

Some time ago I asked you a very similar question, but I didn't take care of it's second part Is this sentence correct?

Vivia aqui cuando estaba en Barcelona la primiera vez.

Have I used good tenses okay? I'm quite sure about vivir, but is estar used with a correct tense?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Both tenses are correct.

By saying "la primera vez" you indicate that there were other times that you were in Barcelona, so this becomes a repetitive action and requires imperfect. Even if you did not say "la primera vez", you could use imperfect just because it´s common usage, but grammatically it should be preterite because the action would be complete with no indication any future action of the same.

Oh really? Let's say I didn't use "la primera vez" here. If I used "era" in a sentence like "Vivia aqui cuando era en Barcelona", wouldn't it be correct. For me it would something like "I was living here, when I was in progress/process of being in a city - Matty08, Oct 25, 2016

Of course I meant "estaba" not "era" - Matty08, Oct 25, 2016

Your reasoning is why it is sometimes spoken this way, but techincally it should be preterite - 005faa61, Oct 25, 2016