Llegué al hotel ayer a las siete de la tarde (I arrived at the hotel yesterday at seven in the evening). Mi hermana nació el pasado abril (My sister was born last April).Įlla vivió en Costa Rica durante un mes (She lived in Costa Rica for one month). The preterite is appropriate whenever you include a temporal phrase denoting a specific time or day that something occurred. However, consider the difference between the duration of the action here:ġa) Empezó a llover ayer (It started raining yesterday).ġb) Recuerdo que siempre llovía en aquel pueblo (I remember it always rained in that village). This may be confusing when speaking about the beginning of something, as it seems that the event described is ongoing. La fiesta terminó cuando se fue (The party ended when he left). The Spanish preterite is used to talk about beginnings and endings of events, often using the verbs comenzar (to begin), empezar (to start), terminar (to finish), and acabar (to end).
Now that you have an idea of what we mean when we say that an action is complete, let’s see other examples of when to use the preterite tense. 1b conveys that you attended a specific occurrence of a class (which one is implied from the context of the conversation, perhaps a class earlier that day). In 1b and 2b, it is clear that the specific action is complete. If the action was ongoing or in progress in the past, the imperfecto (imperfect) form is used. verb form ending in -ing in English and -iendo/-ando). In English we use the present continuous to describe this action, while Spanish uses a similar form made up of the verb estar + the gerund ( gerundio a.k.a. (continuous/ongoing)ġa denotes a habitual action and is interpreted to mean that someone has been attending class regularly for some time.Ģa denotes a continuous action, which has occurred in the past but is still ongoing.
Consider the difference in meaning between the following examples:ġa) I have been attending class / I used to attend class. In English, we often use “have been” or “used to” to denote that an action is continuous (“progressive”), ongoing, or habitual. English still expresses these important distinctions, but often with a combination of verb tenses and extra auxiliary verbs.Īs we are focusing on the preterite in this guide, we will illustrate what a “completed” action means by contrasting it with an “ongoing” action. Spanish past tense forms allow speakers to use a convenient verb ending to express for how long an action occurred, whether it is habitual, or whether it was completed. However, English speakers should be careful not to overuse the preterite when other Spanish past tense forms would be more appropriate, such as the imperfect for ongoing actions. The preterite form of past tense should feel familiar to English speakers, as it is very similar to the English simple past tense (jump + -ed = jumped). Verb Preterite Stem Irregular Endings ser & ir fu- él fue, ellos fueron estar estuv- yo estuve, tu estuviste, él estuvo, nosotros estuvimos, vosotros estuvisteis, ellos estuvieron tener tuv- yo tuve, él tuvo poder pud- yo pude, él pudo hacer hic- (most subjects), hiz- (third person singular) yo hice, él hizo poner pus- yo puse, él puso decir dij- yo dije, él dijo ver vi- yo vi, él vio querer quis- yo quise, él quiso Irregular verb conjugations take some memorization.įortunately, many of the most common irregular preterite verbs follow patterns, consisting of a new stem and different endings for a few subjects.Īnother interesting phenomenon to note is that the ser and ir preterite conjugations are identical. Irregular Preterite VerbsĪll regular verbs can be transformed into the preterite tense easily. See our guide on Spanish pronouns if you need to brush up on the subject pronouns found in the “Person” category above. Adding temporal expressions such as ayer (yesterday) helps speakers distinguish when something took place. Note that the nosotros form is the same as the present tense form.
Person Verbs ending in -ar Verbs ending in -er and -ir yo -é -í tú -aste -iste él, ella, usted -ó -ió nosotros -amos -imos vosotros -asteis -isteis ellos, ellas, ustedes -aron -ieron To form the preterite in Spanish with regular verbs, remove the -ar, -ir, or -er and add the appropriate ending from the chart below. Spanish verbs come in three categories ( -ar, -ir, and - er) and change (“conjugate”) according to who performed it and when the action occurred. The preterite is used to describe actions which have been completed.
The Spanish preterite tense is one of five forms used to describe actions or events that occurred in the past.
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