Tutorial
In Course: Brazilian Portuguese A2

Combining Completed and Ongoing Past Actions

Learn when to choose between the preterite and imperfect past tenses in Brazilian Portuguese to tell stories with background actions and interrupting events.

A dramatic photograph of a person on a vibrant street in a Brazilian city, caught mid-stride as a sudden, torrential tropical rainstorm begins. The foreground shows the initial impact of heavy raindrops on the wet pavement, while in the background, the sky darkens dramatically, contrasting with the earlier bright, sunny atmosphere, capturing the abrupt transition from an ongoing activity to an interrupting event.
en-GB → pt-BR

Management & Tools

Deck Contents

36 Cards
Lesson#1
To tell a story in Portuguese, you need to combine two different past tenses. The imperfeito sets the scene and describes what was already going on, while the pretérito perfeito reports the specific completed events that cut across that background.
Lesson#2
Use the imperfeito for an ongoing background activity, and the pretérito perfeito for a sudden event that interrupts it. The connector 'quando', meaning when, often links the two clauses. For example, 'Eu tomava banho quando o telefone tocou' means 'I was having a shower when the phone rang'.
Quiz#3
Translate into Portuguese: 'I was having a shower when the phone rang.'

Eu tomava banho quando o telefone tocou

Quiz#4
Translate into Portuguese: 'She was reading a book when the power went out.'

Ela lia um livro quando a luz acabou

Quiz#5
Translate into Portuguese: 'I was sleeping when my friend called.'

Eu dormia quando meu amigo ligou

Quiz#6
Translate into Portuguese: 'We were having dinner when you arrived.'

Nós jantávamos quando você chegou

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