Spanish past tense
Preterite and Imperfect tenses
Preterite tense review
● What is the preterite tense and what do we
describe with it?
○ The preterite tense is the past tense. We use the preterite
tense to talk about past events that have been completed.
We can also use the preterite to talk about the start of an
event.
The Imperfect tense
● What is the imperfect tense?
○ It is the other past tense in Spanish
● Uses:
○ It tells what was happening at a certain time in the past. It
answers the question, "what was going on?"
○ It recalls what used to happen over a period of time.
○ It describes a physical, mental, or emotional state in the
past.
Preterite or Imperfect?
● You want to describe how you were feeling last week.
● You are talking about what you did at 2:00 yesterday.
● You are describing something you liked to do when you
were younger.
● You are telling your friend where you went for dinner last
night.
● You are relating to your parent what you and your friends
were doing over the weekend.
Preterite or Imperfect?
Last summer, I went to Mexico with my family. Everyone was very
excited when we arrived at the airport. While my mother was
checking the luggage and my father was handling the tickets, my
little sister Mary ran away. My parents dropped everything and
tried to catch her, but she ducked behind the counter. Finally a
manager grabbed her and brought her back to us. She was crying
because she was sad that she was leaving her dog for two weeks.
Everyone comforted her and, finally, she smiled and boarded the
plane.
Forímation of the Imperfect tense in
Spanish
● There are two sets of endings for verbs.
○ AR verbs
■ -aba, -abas, -aba, -ábamos, abais, aban
○
ER and IR verbs
■ -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, íais, ían
Examples:
hablaba, hablabas, hablaba, hablábamos, hablabais, hablaban
comía, comías, comía, comíamos, comíais, comían
vivía, vivías, vivía, vivíamos, vivíais, vivían
Formation of the Imperfect tense in
Spanish
● There are only 3 irregular verbs with the imperfect
tense: ir, ser, ver
● IR
○ iba, ibas, iba, íbamos, ibais, iban
● SER
○ era, eras, era, éramos, erais, eran
● VER
○ veía, veías, veía, veíamos, veíais, veían