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Foreign Languages
Grade 9-12
Spanish Preterite vs Imperfect Reference Cheat Sheet
A printable reference covering Spanish preterite, imperfect, time cues, conjugation patterns, and choosing past tenses for grades 9-12.
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Spanish has two main past tenses, the preterite and the imperfect, and they do different jobs. This cheat sheet helps students decide whether an action was completed, repeated, ongoing, or part of a background description. It is useful for writing narratives, answering reading questions, and avoiding common translation mistakes. The goal is to make tense choice clear through patterns, examples, and comparison rules.
Key Facts
- Use the preterite for completed actions with a clear beginning or end, such as Ayer estudié por dos horas.
- Use the imperfect for ongoing or repeated past actions, such as Cuando era niño, jugaba al fútbol los sábados.
- Regular -ar preterite endings are -é, -aste, -ó, -amos, -asteis, -aron, as in hablar: hablé, hablaste, habló.
- Regular -er and -ir preterite endings are -í, -iste, -ió, -imos, -isteis, -ieron, as in comer: comí, comiste, comió.
- Regular imperfect endings are -aba, -abas, -aba, -ábamos, -abais, -aban for -ar verbs and -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían for -er and -ir verbs.
- The imperfect has only three common irregular verbs: ser = era, ir = iba, and ver = veía.
- Use preterite for interrupting actions and imperfect for actions already in progress, such as Yo leía cuando sonó el teléfono.
- Common preterite cues include ayer, anoche, una vez, de repente, and el año pasado, while common imperfect cues include siempre, a menudo, todos los días, mientras, and de niño.
Vocabulary
- Preterite
- The Spanish past tense used for completed actions, single events, or actions with a clear start or finish.
- Imperfect
- The Spanish past tense used for ongoing, repeated, habitual, or descriptive actions in the past.
- Time cue
- A word or phrase that suggests which past tense to use, such as ayer for preterite or siempre for imperfect.
- Habitual action
- An action that happened repeatedly in the past, often translated with used to or would in English.
- Background description
- Past information that describes setting, age, time, weather, feelings, or conditions rather than a completed event.
- Interrupting action
- A completed action in the preterite that happens while another action is already in progress in the imperfect.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Using preterite for every English past-tense verb is wrong because Spanish separates completed events from ongoing or repeated past actions.
- Choosing imperfect only because the sentence says when something happened is wrong because a clear date or time can still describe a completed preterite event.
- Forgetting that age, time, weather, and emotions usually use the imperfect is wrong because these often describe background conditions, such as Eran las ocho and Tenía quince años.
- Using the imperfect for a one-time finished action is wrong because actions like llegué, compré, and terminé show completion and need the preterite.
- Ignoring the action that interrupts another action is wrong because the ongoing action takes imperfect and the interruption takes preterite, as in Dormía cuando llamaste.
Practice Questions
- 1 Choose the correct tense and conjugate: Ayer yo (hablar) con mi profesora por 10 minutos.
- 2 Choose the correct tense and conjugate: Cuando tenía 7 años, nosotros (vivir) en México.
- 3 Complete the sentence with the correct past tense: Mientras ellos (comer), el camarero (traer) la cuenta.
- 4 Explain why the sentence De niño, iba al parque todos los domingos uses the imperfect instead of the preterite.