In Spanish, there are two tenses that correspond to the English past simple: preterite and imperfect. The preterite tense describes a single event that is completed within a limited time frame in the past:

Pasaron una semana en este hermoso centro turístico.

They spent a week at this beautiful resort.

 

Regular Verbs Ending in -ar, -er and -ir

Note that verbs ending in –er and –ir have the same endings in the preterite. In addition, the 1st person plural form of verbs ending in –ar are the same in the present tense and in the preterite tense. 

Caminamos por la calle ahora.

We are walking on the street now.

Caminamos por la playa ayer.

We walked on the beach yesterday.

With the verbs ending in –er and –ir, whose stem ends in a vowel, there is a vowel change in the preterite tense of the 3rd person singular and plural i → y. Note that an accent mark is added on top of the letter i in other persons in singular and plural forms:

Ellos oyeron la noticia por la radio anoche.

They heard the news on the radio last night.

 

Stem-changing Verbs

The verbs ending in –ar and –er (e.g. pensar) that undergo a vowel change in the stem in the present tense, do not undergo a vowel change in the preterite:

Stem-changing verbs ending in –ir (e.g. pedir) undergo a stem vowel change in the preterite for the 3rd person singular and plural forms e → i:

Él pidió ayuda para terminar el proyecto a tiempo.

He asked for help to finish the project on time.

Stem-changing verbs ending in –ir (e.g. dormir) undergo a stem vowel change in the preterite for the 3rd person singular and plural forms  o → u:

Ellos durmieron en una cabaña durante sus vacaciones.

They slept in a cottage during their holiday.

 

Irregular Preterite Forms

The preterite forms of the verbs ser, ir and dar are completely irregular:

Note that the preterite forms of the verbs ser and ir are exactly the same:

El viaje a París fue inolvidable.

The trip to Paris was unforgettable.

El mes pasado ella fue a Sevilla.

Last month she went to Seville.

Many verbs have an irregular stem in the preterite. However, for such verbs, the endings are the same in all person forms in the preterite:

Note that when the stem of a verb in the preterite ends with the letter j, the 3rd person plural ending of the preterite is –eron and not –ieron:

• condujeron
• dijeron
• trajeron

In addition, a consonant change c → z occurs in the verb hacer in the 3rd person singular (hizo) in the preterite tense.

 

The Use of Preterite and Imperfect

There are two different past tenses in Spanish that are equivalent to the past simple tense in English. These two different past tenses are the preterite and the imperfect. These two tenses can get easily mixed up but certain rules determine when each tense is used. The preterite describes a single event that is completed within a limited time frame in the past, whereas the imperfect is used to describe circumstances or situations in the past. The imperfect is used to describe what it used to be like, what the weather was like, what time it was and what someone used to do.

When a sentence includes a time expression that refers to the past, is precisely limited and has ended, the preterite is used in Spanish, e.g.:

• ayer = yesterday
• anoche = last night
• la semana pasada = last week
• el mes pasado = last month
• el año pasado = last year
• el año 2014 = the year 2014

Ayer fui al cine con mi amiga.

Yesterday I went to the movies with my friend.

 

The imperfect is used when talking about the past, what someone used to do or to describe circumstances or situations in the past:

Cuando era joven tenía el pelo largo.

When I was young, I had long hair.

Eran las cuatro de la tarde.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

 

The imperfect and the preterite often occur in the same sentence. In such cases, the imperfect describes the situation, environment, or habitual actions, while the preterite describes a single, temporally limited, completed event:

Mientras tú dormías, yo terminé mi tarea.

While you slept, I finished my homework.

The imperfect is used to describe a situation that was ongoing in the past. The preterite is used to move the story forward (it started to rain):

Mientras caminábamos por el parque, empezó a llover.

When we were walking through the park, it started to rain.

The imperfect is used to tell what one used to do (When I was young, I used to travel a lot). The preterite is used to tell about single, temporally limited events that are unrelated to the present (in 2019, I travelled to Japan for the first time):

Cuando era joven, viajaba mucho, pero en 2019 viajé a Japón por primera vez.

When I was young, I used to travel a lot, but in 2019, I travelled to Japan for the first time.

 

Some verbs have different meanings in the imperfect and preterite:

• conocer:

conocí (preterite) a muchas personas = I met many people

conocía (imperfect) a muchas personas = I knew many people

Cuando trabajaba en la oficina, conocía muchas personas interesantes.

When I worked in the office, I met many interesting people.

• haber:

hubo (preterite) un error = an error occurred

había (imperfect) una cola larga en la calle = there was a long line in the street

• saber:

supe (preterite) que era mi hermano = I found out that he was my brother

sabía (imperfect) que era mi hermano = I knew he was my brother

• tener:

tuvo (preterite) cinco hijos = she had five children (gave birth)

tenía (imperfect) cinco hijos = she had five children (raised)