Tiempos pasados del portugués: resumen de uso anclado al inglés

In this article, we will look at the Portuguese equivalents of the English Past Simple, Past Continuous, and Past Perfect tenses.

Lesson #65 Past Continuous Equivalent - Portuguesepedia

Aquí hay un par de lecturas análogas sobre el Presente y Futuro tiempos:
Tiempos presentes en portugués: resumen de uso anclado al inglés
Tiempos futuros portugueses: resumen de uso anclado al inglés

usaré el verbo dormir (dormir) para todos los ejemplos siguientes:

	Dormir \| Preterite Pretérito Perfeito	Dormir \| Imperfect Pretérito Imperfeito
Eu	dormi	dormia
Tu	dormiste	dormias
Ele, ela	dormiu	dormia
Nós	dormimos	dormíamos
Vocês Eles, elas	dormiram	dormiam

Present participle Gerúndio	dormindo
Past participle Particípio passado	dormido

Pasado simple

There are two Past tenses* that often map onto the English Past simple, namely the Preterite (Pretérito Perfeito) y el Imperfect (Pretérito Imperfeito).

Esto a menudo confunde a los estudiantes cuya lengua materna no tiene este matiz tenso (incluido el inglés). Entonces intentemos entenderlo.

* These are technically called “verb aspects” as there’s only one Past tense.

Preterite – Completed Actions

We use the Preterite to talk about past actions that are completed and well delimited in time:

A Raquel dormiu até às 10 da manhã.
Raquel slept until 10 in the morning.

Como puedes ver arriba, el Pretérito (dormiu) se traduce al pasado simple (slept) en Inglés.

Further, we can also use a compound verb structure with the auxiliary verb estar in the Preterite followed by the preposition a and the action verb in the Infinitive without any substantial change in meaning:

A Raquel esteve a dormir até às 10 da manhã.
Raquel was sleeping until 10 in the morning.

Finally, note that we also use the Preterite in situations where, in English, we use the Present Perfect: