Name Your Past
Last week we were talking about the important differences between ser and estar and their correct usage. It’s somewhat difficult for English speakers to employ these words properly because our only everyday option is to be. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about someone’s health, profession, location, or nationality. We might say, for example, “John is a graphic designer,” “Mary is sick,” “Philip is British,” and “The equipment is in Mexico.” In Spanish, however, we must use the verb ser in “Juan es diseñador gráfico” and “Felipe es británico,” while using the verb estar in “María está enferma,” and “El equipo está en México.” That’s because we use ser when referring to someone’s or something’s nature, profession or, perhaps, religion: things that don’t change spontaneously, like one’s health, appearance or location, in which case we use estar.
The ser and estar problem is one of the “Big 3” in Spanish. “Number 2” is probably the P-T-P, or the “Past Tense Problem.” The third, of course, is the subjunctive. Those who have studied Latin (French, Italian or German) know it well. Those who flunked out or took Home Economics will have to wait till next week. Today we’ll be looking at the P-T-P, which is every bit as tricky as ser and estar.
In English, everything that happened before the present boils down to a single form when using the simple past tense: I went, you bought, he ate, we enjoyed, you (plural) loved, they drove¼ In Spanish, however, we must choose between two past tenses, known as the pretérito and the copretérito. If we do not choose correctly, we stand a good chance of being misunderstood or, at the very least, being laugh¬ed at.
Both the preterite and the copreterite are past tenses, but they denote different verbal aspects. In other words, if we conjugate a verb in the preterite —or the copreterite— we know something more about the nature of the action than we would if we used the simple past tense in English. Let’s take a look at an example: “Pedro hablaba (copreterite) muy despacio.” When reading or hearing this sentence, we know that in the past Pedro not only spoke very slowly, but that it was his custom to do so. The copreterite, in this case, lets us know that we aren’t interested in defining the exact time span of the action; we merely want to say that Pedro was in the habit of speaking very slowly. If we use the preterite instead of the copreterite, “Pedro habló muy despacio,” the idea changes: Pedro, at a specific time, or during a specific time span, spoke very slowly. By putting this sentence into a larger context, we can fully appreciate the expressivity of these verbs when differentiated in regard to their aspect: (using the copreterite) “A pesar de su terapia, Pedro hablaba muy despacio.” (“In spite of his therapy, Pedro spoke very slowly.” Using the preterite, we see the difference immediately by slightly changing the example: “Ante el juez, Pedro habló muy des¬pacio.” (“Before the judge, Pedro spoke slowly.”)
This doesn’t mean that we couldn’t use the preterite in the first extended example, and the copreterite in the second, but the nuance would change: “A pesar de su terapia, Pedro habló muy despacio,” would mean that Pedro spoke very slowly, at a specific time, in spite of his therapy. This use of the preterite becomes even clearer if we enhance the example: “A pesar de su terapia, Pedro habló muy despacio hasta que vio a su mamá.” The fact that Pedro stopped speaking slowly when hesaw his mother clearly justifies, in this case, the use of the preterite: Pedro only spoke slowly during a specific time span: from the moment he began to speak until he saw his mother. To this effect we must keep in mind that when using the preterite tense, it doesn’t matter how long the time period is. It could be a second, a year, a century, or an eon.
Now let’s take the second example and put the verb in the copreterite instead of the preterite: “Ante el juez, Pedro hablaba muy despacio.” (“Before the judge, Pedro spoke very slowly.” Here we get the idea that Pedro’s experience before the judge didn’t occur at one point in time, but that it was a repeated experience. Maybe Pedro was obligated to appear before this judge periodically. In this case we are interested not in the fact that Pedro spoke slowly at any given moment, but that he cus¬tom¬arily spoke slowly when placed in a certain situation.
As we can see, the preterite and the copreterite tenses in Spanish are somewhat complicated, but they allow us take advantage of a richer expressive palette. We’ll round out this topic next week, and then push on to the sublime subjunctive.
If you have a specific question you would like to ask me, I would be happy to discuss it with you here in this coluumn. Feel free to e-mail me at sandrocohen@gmail.com
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