Re: many and varied questions

The thing to understand is that the imperfect in french or spanish or
whatever *doesn't* imply that the state is still continuing, its used to
specify that some action was ongoing at the point in the past, or rather
to view it as an ongoing process instead of a completed event. For example:

Yo leia el libro
I was reading the book
Yo lei el libro
I read the book
(forgive me for missing the accents)

Just as the first in english doesn't imply that I'm still reading the
book, it merely presents it as an ongoing process at some point in the
past, so the imperfect doesn't say anything about present state, it is
merely viewing the action as continuing in some way rather than as a
completed whole. There are some interesting contrasts between the
preterite and imperfect forms of some verbs in spanish:

conocia a Juan
I knew Juan
conoci a Juan
I met Juan

conocer means to know someone, and the first means that my knowing Juan
was ongoing, so "I knew Juan" or "I used to know Juan". The second is
normally used to mean "I met Juan for the first time" or "I got to know
Juan".