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Elma Eagles

Grammar Summary

Spanish-2 Unidad 2 Etapa 2

The Progressive Tenses

You have already learned how to form the Present Progressive Tense (Present tense of estar + Present Participle).

For a review of that, go to Spanish-1 Unidad 3 Etapa 3 and then use your browser's back arrow to return to this page. For a review of using pronouns with the present progressive, go to Spanish-1 Unidad 5 Etapa 2.

The progressive tense can also be used to describe actions in the past. it is then called the Past Progressive. It is used only to describe what is actually going on at the time of the sentence: Isabel was writing an article about the earthquake. To form the Past Progressive, use the Imperfect of estar + Present Participle. Isabel estaba escribiendo un artículo sobre el temblor.

Talking About the Past Using Preterite and Imperfect Tenses

How do you know when to use the preterite and when to use the imperfect? The following chart summarizes it for you.

Imperfect	Preterite
Used to tell about an action without saying when it began or ended	Used to tell about an action that started and ended at a definite time
DESCRIBES (the setting, the time, the weather, how people looked or felt, etc.)	NARRATES events (what happened?)
DESCRIBES what USED to happen or what one was in the HABIT of doing - actions that continued over a long period of time, with no definite start and end (when I was a kid I used to ride my bike to school)
Use both tenses to talk about something that happened (preterite) while something else was going on (imperfect)
While I was talking on the phone--->	--->my friend arrived.