Preterite or Imperfect..?
. Todos los esposos se ____(dar) besos, confirmando sus lazos de amor
would this be preterite or imperfect. Im leaning towards imperfect since there's nothing specifying it being a one time thing or indicating when this event started. But im not entirely sure
5 Answers
Ken already said it...but I guess this is the context we were looking for:
right that's what I thought as well, but I asked a couple other ppl and they say its preterite since its referring to the end of a wedding...but I'm not entirely sure. then again it does say all the couples so that could suggest a recurring action...?I'm- - insignia
If it is the end of a wedding, it is past simple.
se dieron besos ..
However...it is odd here to say "todos" los esposos.
it would be very odd to hear this over here.
You get married and you are "esposos". so todos los esposos are lots of married couples.
So it looks like this is a wedding for more than one couple.
doesn't really make a difference.
It will still be:
todos los esposos (all the married couples) se dieron besos (kissed each other)-
....which on the other hand sounds odd again, as it seems like everybody was kissing everybody else, jejeje.
Anyway, if we go with ken's theory, he is right. If this is a cultural custom...imperfect should be used.
If they were talking about weddings in general, and this is what people normally did at the end of weddings, then it would be imperfect. Thinking about it, with the Todos los... this seems more likely. When used in the past tense it would probably mean:
All the newlyweds gave each other kisses, confirming there love bonds. (as a custom)
If they were describing this as a cultural custom, I think the imperfect would be used.
If they were describing one kiss per couple, at the end of the wedding, and they were talking about all of the weddings that took place during a specific time frame...a week...or even a year, then, in my opinion that preterite could be used. It's not like they were kissing each other habitually or at unknown times. If it is one kiss per couple at the end of the wedding, even though the kisses took place on different days, I don't know why it couldn't be in preterite.
These are not easy preterite / imperfect questions. Are they taken from a longer story or do they just appear as one liners as an exercise?
Do you have a longer list of questions, most of which are easy, and you're only showing us the tough ones? I hope so for your sake. 
If you have no more information, and I had to take a guess, I think it is more likely imperfect than preterite.
I'm having difficulty with "todos los esposos" If "todos" could be dropped, then It would simply mean that at the end of the wedding the newly married couple kissed each other, which would be in Spanish "Se dieron besos." They kissed each other.
Without proper context it is difficult to make the proper decision!
Maybe the context is telling somebody about what happened, so if you need it to be in past tense I would say imperfect. But I would imagine that you have to know the context of the sentence in order to know for sure.
Why say this is past at all? It seems like a usual thing that happens, so I would say it in present tense.
