Two ways to present the past
Compare Ayer llamé a mi hermana with Cuando llamé, ella preparaba la cena. The first sentence presents yesterday’s call as an event. The second places the preparation around that call: you look into a situation already under way. English might use “I called” and “she was preparing”, but a useful Spanish explanation starts with how each action is presented.
Use these general Spanish contrasts in Cuban Spanish conversations. The examples are written teaching models. The RAE grammar glossary describes the simple preterite as perfective. Start with that perspective rather than a list of words that supposedly force one tense every time.
Recognise the forms before choosing the meaning
For a first-person event, compare hablé, comí, viví; for a view from within a past situation, compare hablaba, comía, vivía. The imperfect also supplies habitual descriptions. Keep the written accents in the forms that require them: hablé and comía are useful complete items to recognise, rather than interchangeable endings attached to any verb.
Frequent irregular pairs need their own attention: fui / iba for going and fui / era for being. Context distinguishes the two uses of fui: Fui al mercado describes going somewhere, while Fui profesor durante aquel curso presents a bounded period of being a teacher. The destination in the first sentence and the profession in the second tell you which verb the shared form represents.
Put the event into its surrounding scene
Read this short sequence: Llovía cuando salí de casa. Caminé hasta la esquina y esperé allí. Rain provides the scene; leaving, walking and waiting form a sequence of narrated events. The RAE entry on the imperfect explains its imperfective presentation of past situations. The sentence does not tell you when the rain ended.
Change the question and the same scene can foreground something else: ¿Qué hacías cuando empezó a llover? — Caminaba hacia la casa. Now the walking is seen in progress, around the beginning of the rain. Choosing the imperfect does not assert that the person never reached the house; it leaves that endpoint outside what this sentence tells us.
Describe a habit without turning repetition into a rule
De niña, jugaba dominó con mi abuela los domingos presents a childhood habit. The imperfect lets you describe what that part of life was like. The speaker’s gender is visible in niña; the first-person verb form stays the same regardless of the speaker’s gender.
Repeated actions can also appear in the preterite: Durante aquel verano, jugué dominó todos los domingos. Here the narrator presents the repetitions within a delimited summer as a whole. “Repeated means imperfect” misses that difference. First decide whether you are describing a familiar pattern from inside the past or recounting a bounded set of occasions.
Do not choose the tense by the number of minutes
Viví en La Habana diez años can present a ten-year period as a whole. A long duration does not automatically require the imperfect. In A las ocho, preparaba el café, the view falls within preparation at a past reference time. That preparation may be brief; duration alone does not decide the grammatical perspective.
Time expressions help establish the scene, but they are not mechanical switches. Compare Ayer hacía calor and Ayer compré café. Both contain yesterday; one describes a condition and the other narrates a purchase. For unfamiliar words in a real exchange, use the clarification guide to ask about the whole sentence instead of guessing from a single time word.
Answer the question that was actually asked
¿Qué hiciste ayer? — Fui al mercado y compré café asks for narrated actions. ¿Qué hacías cuando te llamé? — Preparaba la cena asks about the situation at another past event. In these models, the question supplies a useful reference point for the answer. You can still add more detail; the first answer does not oblige every following verb to stay in the preterite.
For example: Fui al mercado. Había mucha gente y hacía calor. The account moves from an event to background conditions. The guide to Cuban Spanish question word order deals with how questions are arranged. Here the task is different: keep track of the time and viewpoint each question asks you to explain.
Add ya and todavía without losing the timeline
Cuando llegué, Ana todavía estaba en casa. Luego salió places Ana at home when the arrival happens, then narrates her departure. Todavía marks continuation at that reference point; salió adds a later event. You do not need to know the exact number of minutes to understand this order.
Compare Cuando llegué, Ana ya estaba en casa. Now the sentence presents her presence there as already established by the arrival. The companion guide to ya, todavía and aún explains those smaller timing choices. Read the adverb and the verb together: one word alone does not supply the complete story.
Follow a complete short account
El sábado fui a casa de una amiga. Ella preparaba café cuando llegué. Hablamos un rato y después salimos a caminar. The visit, conversation and walk advance the account; the coffee preparation gives a view into the scene at arrival. Use this structure when recounting a visit: establish the situation, narrate what happened, and add background that helps the listener follow the sequence.
When checking a past-tense sentence, identify the reference time, then ask what the narrator is doing: presenting an event as a whole, looking into a situation, or describing a habit. Read surrounding sentences before deciding an isolated form is wrong. Continue with listening practice and the phrase collection when you want to examine how familiar words work inside longer exchanges.