Topic:
Learn to conjugate ser and estar in the imperfect tense.
Imperfect forms of ser and estar
Let's continue with to be in the past tense now, and see the conjugations for both ser and estar in the imperfect.
Imperfect conjugation of ser
Ser again makes things difficult, as it is irregular in this tense too.
Imperfect conjugation of estar
But at least we find that estar follows the normal rules for an -ar verb in the imperfect tense.
Estar in the preterite vs imperfect
We talked briefly about this with ser in the last lesson, but it is even more subtle with estar.
In fact, one of the articles I linked from the last lesson went so far as to say this:
We have two different ways to say estar in the past. While there is a super fuzzy, minor difference, for practical usage, they mean the exact same thing – all four of the native speakers in our core office had no idea the difference!
It is true that the difference between estuve and estaba is very subtle.
But you still need both
Although the meaning of estar in preterite and imperfect may be nearly identical, they both still have specific uses.
An example with each might help:
- Estuvimos allí por una hora. (We were there for an hour.)
- Estábamos allí cuando llegó la policía. (We were there when the police arrived.)
In the first sentence, the whole point of the sentence is to note that we were there for a specific period of time. The preterite is clearly the right choice here.
The second sentence is a typical example where the imperfect verb sets the scene for an action which is described with the preterite. We "were there" when something else happened. Therefore, we use the imperfect estábamos, but the preterite llegó.
If you want to read more on this distinction, specifically focused on estuve vs estaba, I recommend the Reddit thread linked below in the resources.
Additional Study Resources
Websites:
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To practice the verb forms in this lesson, click Practice Exercises below.
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