It’s so wonderful when new students improve their storytelling skills in Spanish. But this usually comes with a challenge: the narrative use of the imperfect tense.
That’s right, in Spanish, when we tell stories, we don’t just use the simple past (pretérito). We use the imperfect tense a lot to set the scene and provide background.
For example: Cuando era niño, jugaba fútbol todos los días.
What’s this? Why does it happen? And why is it essential to give a spark of life to your stories?
All the answers you’re looking for are right here. Let’s see!
When we tell stories, we usually narrate past events. That means talking about things that already happened, right? They’re in the past now.
In English, for example, you could say something like, “I played soccer.”
The Spanish translation would be: “Yo jugué fútbol.”
It’s normal to expect this. That means it’s understandable to be a little shocked when it doesn’t work like this.
As we showed earlier, there’s another option.
When telling a story, it’s much more common to hear: “Yo jugaba fútbol.”
Does it feel a little strange? Don’t worry, the explanation is pretty easy! You’ll see.
To native speakers, using this descriptive tense to tell stories comes naturally. But, believe it or not, that’s more the result of being exposed to it than conscious study.
So, as an English speaker, it’s okay to find it a little weird. You’re just not used to it.
Besides, it’s true that sentences in the imperfect tense aren’t that easy to translate. At least, it’s not as easy as “I played” → “Yo jugué.”
The imperfect tense, “Yo jugaba”, can seem unclear. It can give the impression that the action, the sentence, or the narrative is incomplete.
But that perfectly explains why we use it for past narration! And once you’ve accepted this… Good job! You’ve already taken the first step of your journey.
Those exact characteristics that make the imperfect tense confusing are about to come in handy.
There are a few reasons why this tense is used in storytelling structures. Once you understand this, you’ll be able to improve your narrations in Spanish! This tricky descriptive tense will make your stories smooth and captivating. Take a look.
“Había una vez…” is the Spanish equivalent of “Once upon a time…”
And, as you can see, it uses the imperfect tense. Otherwise, in the simple past tense, it would be “Hubo una vez.”
Doesn’t that take away some of the magic? It makes it feel like the story is over from the moment you start to tell it. But with the first option… Everything is possible!
Using the imperfect is great for describing background actions, the setting, the mood, and the entire atmosphere of the scene.
For example:
There’s more to the imperfect than background actions and setting the scene. It is also used to describe habits, recurrent actions, and things that were done more than once.
See? It can be useful for this descriptive tense to be a little vague or unclear about the ending. This is definitely practical when telling stories. Sometimes we need to emphasize the repetitive or continuous nature of some actions.
Like this:
Yes, sometimes, these two tenses work together. This is how you can make more advanced storytelling structures to tell stories naturally and confidently.
But of course, it’s necessary to really understand the difference between them to make the most of the narrative use of the imperfect.
This one is used for the more specific actions, ones that are already finished. That means you’re going to apply it to events that happened once and are now over.
Here are some examples:
You can see how they talk about a particular action, like eating pizza, which happened at a specific moment, and then it was over.
That’s it! You got it! Now you’re ready for the next one.
This time, the sentences will have an unfinished quality, or it won’t be specified when or how many times it happened.
Take a look at how it turns the previous examples into the beginnings of bigger stories!
Can you see how the imperfect tense builds up the story by not giving it a specific limit like the simple past? It can be the beginning, background actions, or just the setting. It opens up so many possibilities!
However, there’s still more to learn! There’s another option for you to consider: the continuous past.
When it comes to storytelling structures, you have different options to choose from. And it’s all right to experiment a little! For example, you can introduce the continuous past to describe actions that are still in progress.
If you combine the continuous past with the preterite, you can create very interesting sentences like these:
I hope this answers your question of why Spanish speakers make narrative use of the imperfect tense. Most importantly, I hope this guide inspired you to give it a try and incorporate it into your stories!
This is one of the best parts of learning a new language: learning to share more stories in new, different, and exciting ways!
Go have fun with it. The community of Spanish speakers around the world wants to hear you.