"used to go": Iba vs. Solía ir

Question

Are both translations correct for the following sentences?

"Did you used to go to the beach every summer?" = "¿Ibas a la playa cada verano?" vs. "¿Solías ir a la playa cada verano?"

"We used to go to grandma's house for Christmas dinner." = "Íbamos a la casa de nuestra abuela para la cena de Navidad." vs. "Solíamos ir a la casa de nuestra abuela para la cena de Navidad."

Are the imperfect of "ir" and "soler" interchangeable in these situationes? ¡Gracias!

Answer 1

They both seem correct, there can be a bit of difference between them that doesn't make them exactly equivalent in all cases, although they are close, and can express the same thing.

See this question:

http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/188300/soler-in-the-imperfect-vs.-imperfect-tense

carlomp

Trabajaba por la noche = siempre trabajaba por la noche

Solía trabajar por la noche = casi siempre trabajaba por la noche

Aunque también se pueden usar indistintamente...

Greetings from Spain!

and

lazarus1907

The idea is pretty simple if you know what imperfective aspect is, but coming from English I can understand the problem.

Imperfect does not provide information about beginning or end, but does not imply that these boundaries do not exist either; it simply does not inform you about them. Events described by imperfect can be as long as a few milliseconds or last forever, but the boundaries of the event are not provided. Imperfect can be a single event, a recurring event, and/or a frequent event.

"Soler" is only used for frequent recurring events. Period. While soler is imperfective, not all imperfective situations can be expressed with "soler".

Solía trabajar por la noche.

He used to work at night, i.e. regularly, most working nights.

Trabajaba por la noche.

It could be:

• One particular night, without specifying which one

• Some nights

• Regularly, most working nights.

So you can see in one implication they mean the same, but use of the imperfect has other possible implications for which you cannot use soler, so you have to be specific about what you are trying to convey.

For example:

Íbamos a la casa de nuestra abuela cuando tuvimos un accidente.

We were going to our grandmother's house when we had an accident.

You could not replace íbamos with solíamos ir there. But in that case íbamos does not mean used to.