Habit and completed events

What you will practice

• Use the imperfect for a habit, a description, or background.
• Use the completed past for one finished event.
• Choose between era and fue, and between hablaba and hablé.

Explanation

Habit, background, and description

The imperfect is for a habit, a description, or background, not for one finished event. A regular -ar imperfect is hablaba, hablabas, hablaba, hablábamos, hablaban. Regular -er and -ir verbs use -ía: comía, vivía, and for “we” comíamos. Informal you is comías. For ser, use era, eras, era, éramos, eran. Antes hablaba español todos los días is a habit. La casa era grande describes the house. Eran las ocho sets the background time.

The forms side by side

The completed past presents an event as finished. Ayer hablé con mi madre is one conversation that ended, so the form is hablé, not hablaba. La reunión fue el sábado is a completed fact, so the form is fue, not era. Use hablaba for a habit or for something already going on. Use hablé for one finished act. Here era describes and fue completes. That same fue is also the completed past of ir, which you met as fui.

Both in one sentence

The two forms often share one sentence. The imperfect holds what was already going on, and the completed past marks what cuts in. Yo hablaba con Ana cuando Luis llegó means I was talking with Ana when Luis arrived. hablaba is the background. llegó is the finished arrival. Do not make both verbs completed if the talking was already in progress. Do not put a single finished arrival in the imperfect.

Examples

1. Antes hablaba español todos los días.I used to speak Spanish every day.
2. Ayer hablé con mi madre.I spoke with my mother yesterday.
3. La casa era grande.The house was big.
4. La reunión fue el sábado.The meeting was on Saturday.
5. Yo hablaba con Ana cuando Luis llegó.I was talking with Ana when Luis arrived.

Common mistakes

• todos los días with a past habit takes hablaba. One finished conversation takes hablé.
• Description of what something was like uses era. A meeting on a particular date uses fue.