4.2.0: Gramática
Hablamos del pasado en español
Attribution: By Spanish Grammar in Context, licensed under CC BY-SA NC 4.0.
Víctor is telling his grandmother about his sister’s past graduation party, and that is why he is using one of the past tenses in Spanish, the preterit .
The preterit ( el pretérito o el pretérito indefinido ) is one of the two simple past tenses in Spanish. It is used for completed actions in the past. That is, we use the preterit to talk about things with a clear beginning and end that happened in the past. We can also use it to talk about events in a timeline or to describe a series of past actions.
I. Conjugación
Verbos con terminación -ar
For verbs that end in -ar (like cocinar in Víctor’s message) the preterit endings are as follows:
| yo cocin é | nosotros cocinamos |
|---|---|
| tú/vos cocin aste | vosotros cocinasteis |
| él/ella/usted cocin ó | ellos/ellas/ustedes cocinaron |
Verbos con terminación -er o -ir
For verbs that end in -er and -ir (like comer and recibir in Víctor’s message) the preterit endings are as follows:
| yo comí | nosotros comimos |
|---|---|
| tú/vos comiste | vosotros comisteis |
| él/ella/usted comió | ellos/ellas/ustedes comieron |
| yo recibí | nosotros recibimos |
|---|---|
| tú/vos recibiste | vosotros recibisteis |
| él/ella/usted recibió | ellos/ellas/ustedes recibieron |
II. Expresiones de tiempo para usar con el pretérito
Since the preterit is used to talk about things in the past, there are some time expressions that will help you identify when to use the preterit tense.
| anoche | last night |
|---|---|
| anteayer | the day before yesterday |
| ayer | yesterday |
| de inmediato; inmediatamente… | right away, immediately |
| de repente; de golpe… | all of a sudden, suddenly |
| el año pasado; el mes pasado; la semana pasada | last year, last month, last week |
| entonces; luego… | then, next |
| primero; finalmente… | first of all, finally |
| repentinamente; súbitamente; bruscamente… | suddenly, abruptly, brusquely |
| un día; una mañana; una tarde… | one day, one morning, one evening |
Use the following chat mats as you converse with others: