Guadalupe has lived in Colombia for two years. Present Perfect Guadalupe ha vivido en Colombia durante dos años. I would have told you, but you didn’t let me speak. Past Conditional Te lo habría dicho, pero no me dejaste hablar. Past Participle Había escrito dos cartas. Tense/Form Spanish Example English Example Preterite (Simple Past) La fiesta terminó cuando se fue. Here’s a quick breakdown of which tenses are covered in this guide and their English equivalents. This guide provides short explanations of several types of Spanish past tenses, with links to longer guides to find out more about certain subtleties and exceptions. The difficult part is knowing which past tense is appropriate for the specific situation you want to describe. Though it requires a lot of memorization, conjugating Spanish verbs may in fact be easier than the other half of the task of describing the past. I would have continued studying French, but the French class didn’t fit in my schedule, so I decided to try Spanish.) Where to Start with Spanish Past Tense:Īs you likely know, Spanish verbs come in three categories ( -ar, -ir, - er) and change (“conjugate”) according to who performed the action and when the action occurred. (Well, I studied French in Canada for five years. Habría seguido estudiando francés, pero la clase de francés no encajaba en mi horario, así que decidí probar español.
– Bueno, estudié francés en Canadá durante cinco años. (Thank you! I have been living here in Spain for two years.) – ¡Gracias! He vivido aquí en España durante dos años. (I was born in Utah, but I moved to Canada when I was twelve.) – Nací en Utah, pero me mudé a Canadá cuando tenía doce años. If you’ve tried to have more than a three-sentence conversation in Spanish, you’ve probably found yourself searching for a way to describe how long you’ve lived somewhere, where you lived in the past, what you studied in school, and perhaps how you chose to learn Spanish.Īll of these important introductory facts about yourself require the usage of past tense in Spanish, but the question is which? Take a look at this potential conversation and try your hand at identifying the different forms of past tense.
There’s only so much you can say about the here and now.