From Nutting’s Primer exercise 63: “We withstood the attack bravely for a long time,” said the soldier; “for we thought that our general was hurrying…” “we thought” is translated in the key as putabamus. A few lines later: “suddenly we saw a great light and thought that the sailors were burning the farmhouses.” “thought” is translated as putavimus. I don’t understand why one case gets the imperfect and the second gets the perfect. The imperfect is used, as I understand it, with a sense of ongoing action. But both examples seem to be in the simple past, taking the perfect. What’s the difference?
In the first case there is a clear duration of time:
“We withstood the attack bravely > for a long time> ,” said the soldier; “for we thought that our general was hurrying…”
hence the imperfect.
In the second there is the indication that it was at a particular instance:
“> suddenly > we saw a great light and thought that the sailors were burning the farmhouses.”
hence the perfect.
There are times in English when English uses a simple past where Latin is better expressed with the imperfect. You just hit one of those.
Ronolio explains the difference. Note that in the first sentence “we withstood” would also be imperfect (they went on withstanding for a long time), and as to putabamus, the thinking was not a single event but continued while they were withstanding. The thought was an “ongoing action” just as the withstanding was. “We thought” here means “We were thinking”—imperfect.
In the second sentence the seeing was a one-off instantaneous event (“suddenly”), hence vidimus perfect, and putavimus similarly, presented as a single event. The thought occurred to us—perfect not imperfect.
I see the difference, thanks