Talking about the Past

Revision for Spanish Grammar - Talking about the Past

• Familiarize yourself with the concept of past tense in Spanish. There are three to remember: preterite, imperfect, and past perfect.

• The preterite tense (el pasado preterito) describes completed actions in the past with a definite beginning and end. Examples: “Yo hablé” (I spoke), “Ellos comieron” (They ate).

• The ending of verbs changes in preterite tense. For ‘-ar’ verbs, you use ‘é’, ‘aste’, ‘ó’, ‘amos’, ‘asteis’, ‘aron’. For ‘-er’ and ‘-ir’, the endings are ‘í’, ‘iste’, ‘ió’, ‘imos’, ‘isteis’, ‘ieron’.

• The imperfect tense (el pasado imperfecto) is used to describe ongoing or incomplete actions in the past, habits, or things one used to do. Examples: “Yo hablaba” (I was speaking/I used to speak), “Ellos comían” (They were eating/used to eat).

• Imperfect tense has regular endings for ‘-ar’, ‘-er’, ‘-ir’ verbs: ‘-ar’ verbs change to ‘aba’, ‘abas’, ‘aba’, ‘ábamos’, ‘abais’, ‘aban’; while ‘-er’, ‘-ir’ verbs become ‘ía’, ‘ías’, ‘ía’, ‘íamos’, ‘íais’, ‘ían’.

• The past perfect tense (el pasado perfecto) is used to describe an action that happened before another action in the past. This tense uses the verb ‘haber’ plus the past participle of the main verb. ‘Haber’ is conjugated as ‘había’, ‘habías’, ‘había’, ‘habíamos’, ‘habíais’, ‘habían’.

• A few key irregular past participles to remember are: ‘abierto’ (opened), ‘dicho’ (said), ‘escrito’ (written), ‘hecho’ (done/made), ‘visto’ (seen), ‘vuelto’ (returned).

• Time phrases can also help provide context for when actions took place in the past. Some useful ones include ‘ayer’ (yesterday), ‘la semana pasada’ (last week), ‘hace un año’ (a year ago), ‘cuando era niño/a’ (when I was a child).

• Common verbs that change meaning depending on whether they are in the preterite or imperfect tense: ‘saber’ (to know), ‘conocer’ (to know/meet), ‘poder’ (to be able to), and ‘querer’ (to want).

• Practice conjugating verbs in the past tense and using them in sentences to fully understand how to use the preterite, imperfect, and past perfect tenses.

• Remember to look for cues in sentences that can help you decide which past tense to use. Are the actions completed or ongoing? Is there a specific point in time mentioned?

• It’s important to do plenty of exercises and practice comprehensions where you have to recognize and analyse the use of different tenses. This will not only help you understand the different uses properly but also in context.

Consistently practicing will help you get a firm grasp of these concepts, making it easier when having a conversation or writing in Spanish.