Spanish verb help!!?

Question

How can you tell if you use the imperfect/preterite verbs in a sentence? Here is an example:
verb(tomar) En los veranos, raramente_____vacaciones.
I have to either put the imperfect or the preterite and I can conjugate them, I just need to know which one to use.
thanks.

Answer 1

imperfect. Preterite is the past. You use the imperfect becuase it is a repeating action, and not past.

Answer 2

En los veranos, raramente _______ vacaciones.

First of all, in this sentence the subject is unknown. It could be any person (Yo, tu, el, ella, nosotros, vosotros, ellos), because it is the verb, conjugated, what tells you who the subject is.

So, every answer could be right, depending on the context.

Tomé, tomaba
Tomaste, tomabas
Tomó, tomaba
Tomamos, tomábamos
Tomásteis, tomábais
Tomaron, tomaban

All ok.

Answer 3

En los veranos, raramente TOMO vacaciones

tomo-take future tense

Answer 4

ITo be brief, if it's habitual action in the past , use imperfect.
for example: cuando iba a escuela, estudiaba mucho.
If you are talking about something that happened once in the past, you need to use preterite. Ayer mi novia y yo fuimos a la playa.
So to answer to your question. En los veranos raramente ibamos en vacaciones.
You might want to check back with your Spanish teacher or Spanish speakers..

Answer 5

En los veranos raramente TOMO vacaciones. (Imperfect)

Answer 6

that would probably be an imperfect. Imperfect is when you talk about how often you do something, you are conjugating it as "was (verb)ing", or discussing description/time/weather. If you talk about something that happened only once, it is preterite.

Answer 7

En los veranos, raramente tomabamos vacaciones.
I would use the imperfect.

On the first 'a' of tomabamos you should put the acute accent
(I don't have it on my keyboard)

Answer 8

En los veranos raramente TOMO vacaciones .

Answer 9

Hi,

En los veranos, raramente tomábamos vacaciones.

Hope this will help you, and know it can be a bit confusing, but with practice you will get it.

Answer 10

The Imperfecto tense is used for a habitual, repeated action in the past. Like you could say that when you lived in spain, you took vacations rarely. "Rarely" is a BIG hint. It means something was done repeatedly. We just reviewed this in spanish class at school. "tomaba" is what you want.