Past tenses in Spanish

Let's see what are the different past tenses in Spanish, what are the differences between them, how to use them, and also where else I can use participle ;)

Past preterite - I did

• Punctual events
• Not habits (even if they are repeated a few times)
• Specific times and/or duration
• Not being able to translate as "used to" or "was doing"
• What happened, what people did

Imperfect

• Habits in the past
• I can translate as "used to" or "was doing"
• More ongoing events
• More unspecific duration
• Describing how things were, how people felt, etc

Perfect tense - Haber + participle

-Recent things that have happened -Things that have happened in general, in life (ex: what you've done in your life)

Ex: He ido a la tienda hoy - I've gone to the shop today.
Ex: He estado en España dos veces - I've been to Spain two times (in my life)

If we go further back and want do do "something HAD happened", we just conjugate "haber" into imperfect:

Ex: Había escuchado eso antes - I had listened to that before.

Other uses of participle

These are cases where we use participle but not in perfect tense or variables of it.

Passive - Ser + participle

Ex: Fue escrita una nueva ley
A new law was written (by someone) - agrees with the person or thing affected.

(we'd have same translation using impersonal "se": Se escribió una nueva ley)

Participle as an adjective

Ex: Estaba dormida
I was asleep - agrees with the person or object that describes

To know more about participle and see more examples, check this post on infinitive, gerund and participle

You're in a long relationship with tenses, so we'll try to make it as enjoyable as possible :)

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¡Hasta pronto! :)