Learn Spanish (Latin America): Íbamos a salir, pero surgió un imprevisto. - We were going to go out, but an unforeseen event came up.

Íbamos a salir means 'We were going to go out.' To talk about past intentions or plans—especially ones that got interrupted or didn't happen—you use the imperfect tense of ir (like iba or íbamos) plus a and an infinitive verb.

Why is surgió in the preterite tense while íbamos is in the imperfect?

This is a classic example of how the two past tenses interact! The imperfect (íbamos) describes the background situation or plan that was in progress. The preterite (surgió) is the sudden, one-time action that happened and interrupted that plan.

Why is the verb surgió placed before un imprevisto?

In Spanish, it is very natural to put the verb before the subject when announcing that something appeared, happened, or arrived. Saying surgió un imprevisto (arose an unexpected event) sounds much better to a native speaker than un imprevisto surgió.

How does the word imprevisto break down?

It literally means 'unforeseen.' It is built from im- (not), pre- (before), and visto (seen, the past participle of ver). Here it is used as a noun to mean an unexpected issue or sudden change of plans.