Hello, bienvenidos a la Speed Spanish. This is another quick video on past tense tips. And today I want to talk about the way that we use the pretrait with the imperfect. One important thing to remember is this, that two pretrait actions can't happen at the same time. So if you were talking about two things, one of them will have to be in the imperfect. And I'm talking about two things happening at the same time. One of them has to be in the imperfect and one can be in the pretrait. Or you can have two things in the imperfect, but I'll give you some examples. This sentence, if I say, when I got there, you weren't there. When I got there, when I arrived better, yeah, we'll do that. When I arrived, you weren't there. And now that used to cause me lots of confusion because I would think, oh right, when I got there, you weren't there. But that's in the moment. So you know, obviously we're talking about the pretrait being like a solid block of action and something you can measure. So I used to think, right, when I got there, I know exactly what time it was and you weren't there. Or the wind. Just move over here, so we're out of the wind. You weren't there. And I used to think, right, so if I know the time that you weren't there, surely that's got to be measurable. Okay. So you don't even need to go there in your mind about, you know, when I got there, was it measurable? What we've got are two actions happening exactly the same time. Okay, we've got I arrived, Jiggy, you weren't there. So because there are two things happening at the same time, one of them, probably gothion has to be the imperfect. And which one is the imperfect? How do you know which one it is? Well, it's the background one. Typically it's going to be the one that's longer. So I arrived in a moment, it took me like a blipvert to arrive, a blip second. However you weren't there and you weren't there before, I arrived and you weren't there after I left. So that's the longer one. So that's how we know that that's going to be imperfect. So what would that sentence be? How would you say that when I arrived you weren't there? That's going to be, Juan do Jiggy, two no e-stabbers. Alright, so we've got Jiggy, Prejure, that's the action, yeah? I arrived in action, but you weren't there, two no stabbers. So that's the background event that was going on. Remember the Prejure is the action tense, but the imperfect also in action. But what is it? It's a description of an action, rather than an action, doing an action, yeah? That's the difference. Obviously all verbs are actions, aren't they? But you can use a description of an action. So let's have a think of another example. This one. While I watched the television, my wife ate a sandwich, okay? While I watched the television, my wife ate a sandwich. So two things happening at the same time, which one is the longer of the two? Which one should be imperfect? One of them has to be imperfect. There's not two ways about it. Which one? Which is your choice? Your choice. It all depends on who took the longest. Now in the sentence, while I watched the television, my wife ate a sandwich, the sense is that maybe the television went on for longer watching. If that was the case, if that were the case, you would say, mi entras beia, la televisión, okay? So, mi entras beia. So, mi entras beia, la televisión. Now the question is, is the wife eating the sandwich? Is it pretreat, or is it imperfect? Whilst I was eating, watching the television, my wife was eating a sandwich. That's one option. Whilst I was watching the television, my wife ate a sandwich. So, really, they're both of them, or valid, but listen to what happens. If I say mi entras beia, la televisión. Mi mujer se come ya un sandwich, okay? And I'm using say because she ate a dollar, okay? Now, if I say that to a native speaker, what they have in a mind is a timeline of both things happening at the same time and lasting for around about the same length of time. So, for the during the period that I watched the TV, my wife was eating a sandwich. All right, so that's two imperfect. Mi entras beia la televisión mi mujer, comia se come ya un sandwich, right? But if I then change the sandwich one and I say, mi entras beia la televisión mi mujer se come yo un sandwich. What I've done to a native speaker is I've put the eating of the sandwich much shorter, a shorter period of time than watching the TV. So, in their timeline, they're going to see somebody watching the TV and this very brief eating of a sandwich. So, the predarate always encapsulates something into a much smaller block of action. Obviously, if you add on seven hours, then it's longer. But without any time frame, it happens, boom, like that. And the imperfect action happens like that, okay? So, you choose, remember all of the time with the past, what you choose to say is how people understand it. If you want two actions to happen more or less last the same length of time, then you just use two imperfect. But if you want one action to be longer than the other, then you do imperfect and the predarate, okay? But what you can't do is to do two predarate and want them to happen at the same time. That's the only difference. All right? Okay, I leave out with you. Have a think about it and have a go at making some sentences where you have a longer action and a shorter one with the predarate or two long actions. Okay, until then, bye-bye.