I don't understand the difference between these two answers?

Hi Christie,

I understand your frustration and have had the same sensation many times with these quizzes.

I think the point that the lesson is wishing to highlight is the habitual nature of the past actions.

So in this context terms like "used to do something" or "would do something" are likely to be most appropriate to express habitual past actions.

I suspect that "had" or "were" doing something although amounting to the same thing in English, probably will be rejected as the correct answer in this context.

Hope this helps.

Jim

Vous veniez me voir chaque semaine. This sentence uses the imperfect tense in French. The incorrect choice, "You had come to see me every week," is past perfect tense (plusquamperfect). The meaning is very different, and the past perfect tense is not the correct translation of the French imperfect.

Nous allions en Espagne tous les étés. In this case, I would count both of the options you cite  as correct.

I agree with Chris on the first example.

In the second case, "We were going to Spain every summer" is quite an odd sentence in English. We don't often use the past continuous tense "were going" to describe a habitual event. I suspect it was just chosen as a plausible wrong answer, because if the sentence had been "Nous allions en Espagne" [when something happened] then "We were going to Spain ...." would have been correct.

I am sure there must be some context where it would make sense, but probably the French sentence would be different - perhaps "Nous avions l'habitude ... etc". It's hard to say without the actual context.

Agreed, Alan. But the English sentence "We were going to Spain all the years" -- though admittedly applicable in some very specific contexts only -- is asking for the imperfect tense in English.

If a wrong answer is needed, then the choices should include a "better" wrong answer. ;)

P.S.: Just wrecking my brain to come up with a plausible context, something along these lines may work:
We were going to Spain all the years, when actually Portugal would have been much nicer!

I hope I'm not just being pedantic if I say that there is no imperfect tense in English. The past continuous is quite often the appropriate tense to use in translation, but that's a different matter. I don't believe it corresponds to the imparfait here.

It is really hard to find a plausible context, and I don't think yours works. The use of the past continuous puts the focus at that point in time, not now, and there has to be something to justify that.  Maybe something like:

For the next few years there were few chances for us to meet. She was away at University during term, while we were going to Spain every summer.

But I don't like my example much either.

Agreed, English does not have a specific imperfect tense. To be absolutely precise, imperfect is a verb aspect and not a tense. In English it would be called past progressive or past continuous which is very closely aligned with what's imperfect tense in French.

Thanks for all the answers everyone! I think I'm at the point where I've "hit the wall" with French in the past. All the different tenses and the rules on when to use them give me a headache.

It doesn't help that I'm Canadian and live in a city with a large Francophone population (about 30%), so the French I hear on a day-to-day basis does not always match what is taught on here and other places. It's not even always the same as Quebec French. Le sigh.

I think I understand the differences between the two answers in each case now. Although I had no idea that Plus-Que-Parfait even existed before reading this thread. Thanks again!

 "We were going to Spain every summer." 

Sorry for the late contribution but I can see nothing wrong with this standalone English sentence and like several others, think the exercise is ambiguous. OK you wouldn’t use it often but it would be fine as part of a narrative with short sentences, for example.  (DOI elderly Brit).