The preterite and imperfect are past tenses in Spanish. Preterite is a definite past tense, representing a situation that had a definite start, duration, and end; finished, completed actions. The imperfect tense is more of an indefinite time period in the past, regarding indefinite time periods, descriptions, and continuous actions in the past.
Preterite: Vi la película anoche. = I saw the movie last night. Me gustó la película mucho. = I liked it a lot.
Imperfect: Juagaba videojuegos de niño. = I used to play video games as a child. Eran las dos de la tarde. = It was two o'clock in the afternoon.
