Narrar en pretérito: práctica | Spanish (Spain) Grammar

By B1 you have the conjugations under control: regular -ar, -er, -ir preterites, the irregular families (tuve, dije, fui), and the imperfect endings -aba / -ía. What you may not yet have is the instinct for which one to use when, sentence by sentence, inside a real piece of storytelling. This page is a workout, not a lecture. We will read two short narratives in peninsular Spanish, annotate every single verb form to explain why preterite or imperfect was chosen, and then you'll try a fill-in-the-blanks exercise with the answer key at the bottom.

If you find yourself defaulting to preterite for everything in your own writing — this is the most common mid-level error — these worked examples are exactly what you need.

The two engines of past narration

In a Spanish story about something that happened before today, two verb forms do almost all the work:

Pretérito indefinido (hablé, comí, vine) — pushes the story forward. Each verb is a discrete event with a beginning and an end. Think of it as the camera cutting to the next shot.
Imperfecto (hablaba, comía, venía) — paints the background. Weather, mood, age, ongoing activities, the look of things, what was already happening when the next event landed. Think of it as the camera lingering on the scenery while nothing is "happening".

Native speakers don't toggle between them with a rule book. They use the preterite when they want to advance the story and the imperfect when they want to describe it. Read enough Spanish and the instinct becomes automatic. The practice below speeds that up.

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If you can rewrite a verb in your head as "was doing / used to / was ___ing" and the sentence still makes sense, you want the imperfect. If you can rewrite it as "did / and then" — bounded, complete, finished — you want the preterite. This is not a perfect rule, but it gets you about 80% of the way.

Narrative 1: A day in Madrid

Read the paragraph straight through first, then read the annotated breakdown.

El sábado pasado me levanté temprano porque quería aprovechar el día. Hacía un sol espléndido, así que decidí ir andando hasta el Prado. Por el camino paré en una cafetería de Atocha y me tomé un café con leche y una tostada con tomate. Cuando llegué al museo, había una cola enorme, pero por suerte tenía la entrada comprada por internet. Estuve dentro casi tres horas — las Meninas me parecieron más impresionantes de lo que recordaba. Después, fui andando hasta Malasaña y, como estaba un poco cansada, me senté en una terraza. Pedí una caña y unas patatas bravas. Eran las nueve cuando por fin volví a casa.

Verb-by-verb annotation

Verb form	Tense	Why this tense
me levanté	preterite	A single, completed action that starts the story. The getting-up is bounded — it happened, then it was done.
quería	imperfect	An ongoing mental state (a want) at that moment, not a sudden decision. "I wanted to" — no clear start or end.
hacía	imperfect	Background weather. Weather descriptions in past narration are almost always imperfect — the sun isn't an event, it's the scenery.
decidí	preterite	The moment of decision — a punctual mental event that pushes the story forward.
paré	preterite	A discrete event in the sequence of the morning: I stopped (and then continued).
me tomé	preterite	The coffee was had, start to finish. A bounded action.
llegué	preterite	Arrival — by definition a punctual event. Note the spelling change -gué before -é.
había	imperfect	Description of what was there when I arrived — the queue was already in place. Había (imperfect of haber) for existence in the past.
tenía	imperfect	A state of possession at that moment. Owning the ticket isn't an event.
estuve	preterite	The whole visit, bounded ("for nearly three hours"). The duration is closed, so preterite — not imperfect.
me parecieron	preterite	The act of forming the impression at that visit. A bounded mental event tied to a specific occasion.
recordaba	imperfect	A standing memory, ongoing before the visit. "Than I remembered" = than I had been remembering up to that point.
fui	preterite	A movement from A to B, completed.
estaba	imperfect	A state (being tired). States are imperfect unless explicitly bounded with a duration.
me senté	preterite	The act of sitting down — a punctual event.
pedí	preterite	The act of ordering — bounded.
eran	imperfect	Telling time in the past is always imperfect: eran las nueve, never fueron las nueve. The time isn't an event, it's the clock face you saw.
volví	preterite	The return — a discrete event that closes the story.

Notice the rhythm: every line that moves the story forward in time uses the preterite, and every line that fills in what surrounded the action uses the imperfect. The preterite verbs form the spine of the story; the imperfect verbs are the muscle around it.

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Telling time in the past is one of the most reliable diagnostic uses of the imperfect. Eran las dos cuando llegó (it was two when he arrived) — never fueron las dos. The clock-reading is a state, not an event.

Narrative 2: Getting lost in Malasaña

No conocía Malasaña, así que cuando salí del metro me quedé un momento mirando el plano del móvil. Buscaba un bar que me había recomendado un amigo, uno que estaba en una calle pequeña. Empecé a andar, giré dos veces a la derecha y me di cuenta de que estaba perdida. Pregunté a una señora que paseaba un perrito y me explicó que tenía que volver atrás. Tardé otros veinte minutos en encontrarlo, pero al final mereció la pena: el sitio era una joya.

Why each form

conocía (imperfect) — knowledge as an ongoing state before the story begins. "I didn't know" = a standing condition.
salí (preterite) — a discrete event: the exit from the metro.
me quedé (preterite) — a bounded pause, completed.
buscaba (imperfect) — the searching was the ongoing activity I was engaged in, not a punctual event. Buscaba un bar = "I was looking for a bar".
me había recomendado (pluscuamperfecto) — recommended before the story's main timeline; pluperfect for the deeper past.
estaba (imperfect) — the bar's location was a fixed background fact, not an event.
empecé (preterite) — the start of walking is a punctual event.
giré (preterite) — two completed turns; bounded action.
me di cuenta (preterite) — the realization is a sudden event, not a state. This is the classic preterite usage: realising is punctual.
estaba (imperfect) — being lost = ongoing state.
pregunté (preterite) — a single, completed speech act.
paseaba (imperfect) — the lady was already in the middle of walking the dog when I asked. Ongoing background activity.
me explicó (preterite) — the explanation is delivered, complete.
tenía (imperfect) — a state of obligation at that moment ("had to go back").
tardé (preterite) — a closed duration ("twenty minutes"). When duration is bounded, the verb is preterite even if the action took time.
mereció (preterite) — the verdict on the whole experience, bounded.
era (imperfect) — describing what the place was like; the description is a state, not an event.

Cuando me di cuenta de que estaba perdida, ya había pasado media hora.

When I realised I was lost, half an hour had already gone by.

This single sentence uses three past tenses: preterite (me di cuenta) for the punctual realisation, imperfect (estaba) for the ongoing state of being lost, and pluperfect (había pasado) for the time already elapsed before the realisation. That layering is what gives Spanish narration its richness.

A useful test for the tricky cases

When you're unsure, ask yourself: is the verb part of the story's spine, or part of its background?

Did this verb advance the plot by one step? → preterite
Is this verb describing what was already true, ongoing, or repeated when the next event happened? → imperfect

The hardest cases are verbs that can be either depending on how the speaker frames them — estaba enferma (she was ill, ongoing) vs estuvo enferma dos semanas (she was ill for two weeks, bounded). Same verb, same situation; the difference is whether you treat it as a state to set the scene or as a bounded chapter that ended.

Estaba enferma y por eso no fue al trabajo.

She was ill and that's why she didn't go to work. (ongoing state, then a punctual consequence)

Estuvo enferma dos semanas, pero ya está bien.

She was ill for two weeks, but she's fine now. (closed chapter — duration bounded)

Fill-in-the-blanks exercise

Complete each gap with the preterite or imperfect of the verb in parentheses. The answer key is below. Try the whole passage before checking.

Aquella tarde yo (1) _ (estar) en casa de mis abuelos en Sevilla. (2) _ (Hacer) muchísimo calor, como siempre en agosto, y el ventilador del salón apenas (3) _ (funcionar). Mi abuela (4) _ (preparar) gazpacho en la cocina mientras mi abuelo (5) _ (leer) el periódico. De repente (6) _ (sonar) el teléfono. (7) _ (Ser) mi tío, que (8) _ (vivir) en Madrid y casi nunca (9) _ (llamar). (10) _ (Decir, él) que (11) _ (querer) pasar el fin de semana con nosotros y que (12) _ (ir) a coger el AVE esa misma tarde. Mi abuela (13) _ (colgar) el teléfono y (14) _ (mirarme) con cara de pánico — la nevera (15) _ (estar) medio vacía. (16) _ (Tener, nosotras) que ir al supermercado de inmediato.

Answer key

estaba — imperfect; background state of being at the grandparents' house.
Hacía — imperfect; weather description, always imperfect in past narration.
funcionaba — imperfect; an ongoing condition (the fan barely working).
preparaba — imperfect; an ongoing background activity when the phone rang.
leía — imperfect; another ongoing background activity, parallel to preparaba.
sonó — preterite; the punctual event that breaks the calm. This is the "and then…" moment.
Era — imperfect; identifying who was on the line is a state, not an event. Era mi tío, never fue mi tío in this context.
vivía — imperfect; an ongoing state of residence at that time.
llamaba — imperfect; a habitual (negative) habit, "almost never called".
Dijo — preterite; a completed speech act.
quería — imperfect; an ongoing wish at the time of speaking. Note: with querer, preterite (quiso) means "tried" or "made the attempt" — not what we mean here.
iba — imperfect; the iba a + infinitivo construction expresses past intention ("was going to take").
colgó — preterite; the act of hanging up is punctual.
me miró — preterite; the look was a discrete, completed action.
estaba — imperfect; the state of the fridge at that moment.
Tuvimos — preterite; the obligation became real and was acted on. Teníamos que ir (imperfect) would mean "we had to go" as a standing state; tuvimos que ir (preterite) means we actually did go. The story implies action was taken.

If you missed item 11 or 16, you're in good company — those are the choices that separate B1 from B2. Querer and tener que both shift meaning depending on tense (see Cambios de significado: pretérito vs imperfecto).

The peninsular twist: today vs not today

Everything above describes events that happened before today. If the events of the story happened today — this morning, an hour ago, earlier this afternoon — peninsular Spanish would shift the preterites to pretérito perfecto while leaving the imperfects untouched. The first narrative would begin:

Esta mañana me he levantado temprano porque quería aprovechar el día. Hacía un sol espléndido, así que he decidido ir andando hasta el Prado.

This morning I got up early because I wanted to make the most of the day. It was beautifully sunny, so I decided to walk to the Prado.

Note: quería, hacía stay in the imperfect — they were already background states. Only the spine verbs (the preterites that advanced the story) shift to he levantado, he decidido, he parado, he llegado, etc. This today/not-today split is unique to Spain and is one of the most reliable markers of peninsular speech. See Pretérito vs pretérito perfecto for the full picture.

Common mistakes

❌ Cuando llegué al museo, hubo una cola enorme.

Wrong: 'había una cola' (imperfect) — the queue already existed; it's background, not an event.

✅ Cuando llegué al museo, había una cola enorme.

Correct: imperfect había for an ongoing background condition.

❌ Fueron las nueve cuando volví a casa.

Wrong: telling time in the past is always imperfect.

✅ Eran las nueve cuando volví a casa.

Correct: eran las nueve for the time, volví for the punctual event.

❌ Mi abuela preparó gazpacho mientras mi abuelo leyó el periódico.

Wrong: two parallel background activities should both be imperfect.

✅ Mi abuela preparaba gazpacho mientras mi abuelo leía el periódico.

Correct: imperfect for ongoing simultaneous actions.

❌ Estaba enferma dos semanas.

Wrong: a bounded duration (dos semanas) requires the preterite.

✅ Estuvo enferma dos semanas.

Correct: estuvo for the closed chapter.

❌ Pregunté a una señora que paseó un perrito.

Wrong: she was in the middle of walking the dog when I asked — that's background, imperfect.

✅ Pregunté a una señora que paseaba un perrito.

Correct: pregunté (event) + paseaba (ongoing background).

Key takeaways

A well-formed Spanish past narration pairs preterite (events) with imperfect (background). Defaulting to preterite for everything is the single most common B1 error.
Weather, time, age, mental and physical states, and ongoing background activities go in the imperfect.
Discrete events, completed actions, sudden realisations, and the spine of the story go in the preterite.
Some verbs (estar, tener, querer, saber, poder, conocer) shift meaning between the two tenses — be deliberate with them. See Cambios de significado.
In Spain, if the events occurred today, the preterites shift to the pretérito perfecto (he llegado, he decidido) while the imperfects stay the same.

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