Estuve and estaba (preterite and imperfect)

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I get a little confused by this, and not sure if they are both correct or whether I've been doing this wrong.

If I wanted to say, for example, "I was happy" I have been saying "estuve feliz" which seems to make sense to me as I'm using the preterite and it's a fixed emotion at a fixed time, like "estuve feliz ayer"

But now I am hearing that I should be saying "estaba feliz", which to me means that it's an imperfect conjugation, or an ongoing event in the past, which to me logically doesn't make sense (to my anglo way of thinking).

Is one of these more correct than the other? are both correct?

I have been using "estuve" for all past feelings at a fixed point in time, and now I'm getting the feeling that I've been doing it wrong and that the chicas are all laughing at me! Can't have that! lol. Help!

 

I am an engineer, not a linguist, so take my explanations as just good will.

It is more complicated than just that, the english verb to be replaces TWO spanish verbs, ser and estar; so "I was happy" translates four ways:

- Yo estaba feliz. (like in "I was happy playing with my kids when...")
- Yo estuve feliz. (gramatically correct but almost never used)
- Yo era feliz. (like in "I was happy when she lived with me...")
- Yo fui feliz. (like in "I was happy in my childhood...")

And to make things worse, none of them is frequently used in an after-sex context. One would more likely say "Tú me hiciste feliz" (you made me happy).

Now, if you really want to complicate things a little more let's remember that, in english, happy is sometimes used in a different way. You may say "I was happy to lunch with you yesterday" or "I'd be happy to take you out dancing tonight" but you don't use "feliz" in that context in spanish. You'd rather say "Me alegra haber almorzado contigo ayer" or "Me gustaría sacarte a bailar esta noche"... as you see, not a literal translation.

I don't know if I'm helping or just making it more confusing.

 

Shadowman,
I think this grammar confusion will be cleared if you notice the double meaning of the verb to be in Spanish. Please note the cojugation in simple past tense

I was -- yo fui/ yo estaba
you were --- Tu fuiste / tu estabas
He was ----El fue / El estaba
She was ----Ella fue / Ella estaba
it was ---- Estaba
We were ------Fuimos /Estabamos
You were ............ Fueron / Estaban
They were --------- Ellos/as fueron / estaban

Now you have to select the context you use each meaning of the verb:

I was happy .... Fui Feliz
I was on holidays ----Estaba de vacaciones

This is the particular case of the first singular person

In the rest of grammatical person you basically use the meaning estaba and its variants.

Remember in Spanish To Be implies a whole range of meanings from to exist to find oneself in a place, situation or condition.


Hope these lines may be helpful to you.

Drais

 

ok, so basically just use estaba for past sentiment (estaba triste, estaba feliz, estaba emocionante etc)

does this also apply to location? (estaba al cine, estaba a la casa etc) or would estuve be used for that?

or is estuve and variants just simply never used in normal conversation?

Thanks guys. Yes, it is confusing, but this helps.

 

well my friend, you can use it in either way, but if you want to stick more to the grammatical form the following tip will help you a little bit more:

estaba: is used when an action occured in an specific time in the past, for example if you want to say:
"I was at home when you called me" this would be translated to
Estaba en casa cuando me llamaste

estaba, it should also be used when you want to make a description of a particular situation, for example:
"I was sad yesterday" so it translates to
Estaba triste ayer

the use of "estuve" is when the action occured in the past, but in an non definite time space, for example you could say:
"Yesterday I was at home all day long" which would translate to
Estuve en casa todo el día


does this also apply to location? (estaba al cine, estaba a la casa etc) or would estuve be used for that?

If you apply the aforementioned tips you could deduce that the correct terms would be:
Estaba en el cine (please do not put "al")
Estaba en la casa (if you want to put certain strength in that situation, again you should not put "al")

But as long as we do not have so many linguistic problems and eventhough mainly nobody would care how do you speak, it would be correct to say also:
Estuve en el cine
Estuve en la casa
As you can see the difference is mainly conceptual
I hope this helps

 

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So do I, buddy . Just remember the context.