Preterite and imperfect

When I started learning the past tense in Spanish I was excited because I felt I was moving to the next level. I couldn't carry on a real conversation because it's hard to explain anything without using the past tense. At first I was excited and I was getting it...I thought. Then it started to get harder and I never knew which tense to use. Do I use the preterite, the imperfect I never knew.

I heard the definitions that generally the preterite refers to past actions that are seen as completed. The imperfect generally refers to actions that are not seen as being completed. Great, but that didn't clear everything up for me so I needed some hands on practice.

I took one verb at a time and really went over them until I had them down and could tell the difference.

Here are a couple examples using the verb volar - to fly.

Imperfect:
cuando yo era pequeño, yo volaba en avion mucho.
when I was small I flew in planes a lot.

This is the imperfect because it doesn't specify the action is completed. When I was learning this it sounded to me like the action was finished. "When I was small" sounds finished to me because I'm not small anymore. The imperfect tells us generally when the action happened. I then compared it to the preterite.


Preterite:
Yo volé a San Francisco la semana pasada.
I flew to San Francisco last week.

This one definitely has ended, it was last week. If you say last week, last night, last year, anything like that you will use the preterit tense. anything where the action is obviously complete. The preterite tells us specifically when an action happened.

Just grab a verb and the conjugation for both and just keep making up sentences using both so you will know the difference automatically. then grab another and another. Trust me, with a little practice and a few verbs under your belt you will have the difference down in no time.

buena suerte