In this article we identify a variable context in the use of two Galician verb forms (cantei and cantara) and three Spanish verb forms used in Galicia (canté, cantara, and había cantado) with identical modal, temporal, and aspectual values: the simple past indicative. We show that the variation in question is constrained by linguistic factors, specifically pragmatic ones, and that, although the forms cantei and canté are widely preferred, contexts with low discourse focalization favor cantara and había cantado. Finally, we test this hypothesis with data from two language corpora (Galician and Galician Spanish), which are quantified and interpreted with the program VARBRUL 2S.