Thinking in English 

Kris’ teachers have always told him to “think in Spanish,” but he finds it helpful to think in English when distinguishing between the preterite and imperfect. He tries to think of imperfect verbs communicating “used to.” However, for preterite verbs he says, “you can’t use ‘used to’ anymore” because the equivalent Spanish form would call for the imperfect.  For example, Ayer fuial cine would not translate as ‘*Yesterday I used to go to the movies’ but rather as ‘Yesterday I went to the movies.’