Question
Updated on
7 Jun 2015
- English (US)
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Spanish (Colombia)
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Arabic
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Spanish (Mexico)
Question about Spanish (Colombia)
What is the difference between Estaba and Estuve ?Feel free to just provide example sentences.
What is the difference between Estaba and Estuve ?Feel free to just provide example sentences.
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- English (US)
Estaba refers to actions that you used to do, or were doing in the past, but may still go on. Etuve refers to actions that you have finished in the past.
- Spanish (Colombia)
Spanish has two "simple" past tenses, the preterite and the imperfect. "Estuve" uses the preterite, while "estaba" is an example of the imperfect.
You use the preterite (estuve) when you talk about something that happened once or that happened more than once but had a specific end, whereas you use the imperfect (estaba) for habitual or repeated actions.
Some examples:
Estaba (non-specific range of time):
"I was in the kitchen" = "Yo estaba en la cocina"
"I was sad" = "Yo estaba triste"
Estuve (specific range of time):
"I was in the kitchen this morning" = "Yo estuve en la cocina esta mañana"
"They were here" = "Ellos estaban aqui"
"They were here last night" = "Ellos estuvieron aqui anoche"
- Spanish (Colombia)
(Estaba) se utiliza cuando estabas haciendo algo antes como *yo estaba haciendo tareas *
- Spanish (Colombia)
La diferencia radica en cómo se enfocan en una acción pasada. "Estaba" es usado para conectar 2 acontecimientos. Ejemplo: "Yo estaba en la tienda cuando me llamó". Mientras "estuve" expresa un solo hecho. Ejemplo: "Yo estuve en la tienda".
- Spanish (Colombia)
Ambos verbos están en pasado, pero uno es en pretérito imperfecto (estaba), el otro pretérito perfecto simple(estuve), el primero se utiliza generalmente cuando existen otros eventos o sucesos que se relacionan con la acción principal, ejemplo: "Yo estaba jugando en el parque cuando empezó a llover", aquí la acción principal que es "jugar" se ve relacionada o afectada por el suceso de la "lluvia", entonces, la acción (jugar) que sujeto desarrolla se relaciona con otro suceso (llover). Asimismo este verbo "estaba", se utiliza cuando se narran hechos o describir acontecimientos que tuvieron lugar en el pasado.
El segundo (estuve), indica que la acción o el acontecimiento se sitúa en un punto específico, anterior al momento en el que se habla, generalmente son sucesos ya culminados en el pasado, ejemplo: "Estuve jugando toda la tarde", aquí se indica que estuvo realizando una acción (jugar) toda la tarde, pero no se vio afectada por otra, de igual forma es algo que ya culminó.
Más ejemplos:
"Lo siento, no puede hacer lo que me pediste, ayer estuve muy ocupada cuidando de mi abuela"
"Estaba haciendo mi tarea hasta que Julio llegó a interrumpir"
Espero que sea más entendible.
- Spanish (Colombia)
They means the same, you could use both in the same sentence
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