Imperfect vs. Preterit: A New Approach

Dekalb College

The difficulty that some students experience in the learning and usage of the imperfect vs. preterit in Spanish could be corrected if we would use a method where the importance of the aspectual values of the imperfect tense is considered and stressed.

The following method has been helpful in facilitating the understanding of the imperfect vs. preterit for beginning students, and has increased their use in oral and written communication.

The first idea to put into practice is a visual one based on television. All of us, including the students, have been exposed to severe weather warnings: flood warnings, severe thunderstorms, high winds, snow storms, etc. In case of imminent danger or serious weather conditions, spelled warning reports appear on the TV screen, running slowly from right to left at the bottom of the screen during the actual program without seriously interrupting it. The program in progress, the program being watched, began before and continues practically uninterrupted during the duration of the spelled warning report and will eventually finish. The weather warning report caught a part of our attention that was also focusing on the current program. This spelled weather warning report represents the idea of what the preterit represents and what it is used for in Spanish. The program watched represents the imperfect with its main characteristic and function: durability in the past. Many examples could be used to illustrate this idea: Vi el parte del tiempo cuando daban una película. Me enteré de la tormenta cuando veía el partido. Other examples viewing the imperfect in its whole duration could be mentioned: Dieron el parte del tiempo cuando empezaba el partido. Dieron el parte del tiempo cuando mediaba la película. Dieron el parte del tiempo cuando terminaba la película.

Once this presentation is fully exploited, a real previously recorded live example should be shown. If not, a drawing on the board showing the T.V. set and the warning report entering the screen and leaving it. A full, intense demonstration through examples should continue in which all the aspects of the imperfect in relation to the preterit are presented and discussed.

The use of the ongoing program on TV, a game, a film, etc., is a very logical example. The students grasp the concept immediately with a minimum of effort. But it is important to stress also that when emphasis is put on the duration in the past, the action happening had a beginning, and will have, eventually, an end. Therefore, in spite of the fact that the Spanish speaker uses the imperfect -without any choice- to represent actions as ongoing in the past, he takes for granted that the action could end sometime. The person would not watch the program forever. Nor would the game or program last forever either. This nuance of the use of the imperfect, which contributes to making Spanish a wonderful language, is sometimes neglected due perhaps to an excess in stressing the duration in the past as the main characteristic of the verb. Even when Andrés Bello wrote «cuando llegaste llovía: la lluvia coexistió en una parte de su duración con tu llegada, que es una cosa pretérita: pero puede haber durado largo tiempo antes de ella, y haber seguido durante largo tiempo después, y durar todavía cuando hablo» (221). I could add: y hasta haber terminado. This aspectual value of the imperfect, with its interiority, simultaneity and posteriority should be fully explained and stressed.

In the presentation of the imperfect vs. preterit using the TV program and the weather warning report, the students have a clear view of the uses of the imperfect and the preterit at work. But the students could also think, logically, that the situation ongoing in the past, the program, would finish, or that the viewer would eventually stop watching the program. At this time the idea of amanecía, estaba amaneciendo, ha amanecido and amaneció should be brought out. It should not only indicate the aspect of duration as the main characteristic of the imperfect, but it should show that amanecía could begin at

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some time in the past so it represents an earlier action in progress that is still ongoing and that logically, will end sometime in the future. It is important to point out that when this concept is understood by the students and a practice lesson is done in class, the constant use of the past progressive as a scapegoat in translating or using the idea of the imperfect in all situations is greatly diminished. The reason is because now the students see the past progressive as it is used in Spanish referring to a specific moment in the past, when, on the other hand, the action represented by the imperfect could last to the point of possible completion in a future that will become part of the past. This concept, applied directly to the imperfect, would facilitate the elucidation of sentences like: ¿desde cuándo estabas aquí? where the completeness of estabas, somewhat reinforced by the semantic value of the verb estar, puzzles the student. We should not forget when teaching that what could be very obvious for the teacher, some times is not so for the student.

The «punctuality» of the preterit, the segment of time used by the action represented by the preterit with its beginning and ending well defined, the weather warning report going in and out of the T.V. screen, should not be an obstacle either in saying that the ongoing program could eventually terminate. In the sentence moría cuando llegamos, the action represented by moría will finish one way or the other. The person dying will be saved or will die. The fact that the main characteristic of the imperfect resides in using it as representing an ongoing action, an action not finished in the past, incomplete at the time of mentioning it, like the program, the film, the game on the T.V. set, should not preclude the indication of the possible, logical, ending of the action, even if it is at a remote time that the speaker does not know or is not interested in stating. The students would better understand the role of the imperfect as a part of the past if this aspect were stressed.

The use of the weather warning report illustration serves admirably to clarify the role of the preterit. It is an action completed that took a definite segment of time. Also, it could serve as a base, due to its complete repetition at intervals, to explain the role of the preterit when it is used to represent a number of actions, each brought to a complete termination before the next one begins. In the sentence en el viaje a Granada pasé por Aranjuez, conocí Córdoba y visité Sevilla, it would not be too difficult to associate el viaje with the program and pasé, conocí and visité with three of the sequences of the weather warning report.

It is true, sometimes, that only by approximation in translation do we begin to learn a foreign language, and that the equivalences between syntactic constructions of different languages can hardly overcome an approximation. But in the idea of the imperfect as representing the earlier of the two actions in many sentences when contrasted with the preterit, and in the method using the TV program and the weather warning report, we are dealing with ideas, and ideas are what are needed for the student to reach an understanding of Spanish and of how the Spanish-speaking people think when they speak and write.

Bello, Andrés y Rufino J. Cuervo. Gramática de la lengua castellana. Ed. Niceto Alcalá-Zamora. 7ª ed. Buenos Aires: Sopena Argentina, 1964.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 73, Number 4, December 1990