We often think of the past, present and future as the three verb tenses, although in reality Spanish has other tenses as well. Here you can learn how to conjugate and use the various tenses of Spanish.
A sentence such as 'When I was a child I went to Disneyland' is ambiguous in English, for it could refer to a one-time event or something that happened multiple times. The use of two simple past tenses in Spanish eliminates that ambiguity.
Usually, the conditional tense of Spanish is the equivalent of the English auxiliary verb 'would.' This lesson points out the times where that isn't the case.
The two simple past tenses of Spanish can be translated differently in English when used with certain common verbs, among them 'conocer,' 'saber' and 'tener'
An explanation of the use of the present perfect tense with Spanish along with examples and English translations.
An explanation, with examples, of perfect infinitives and how they're used in Spanish.
Learn how present participles, also known as gerunds, are used in Spanish. They typically are the equivalent of '-ing' verbs in English.
Learn what progressive verbs are and how they are used in English and Spanish.
The Spanish auxiliary verb is used to form the perfect tenses, which indicate completed action. This lesson explains the use of this important and very common verb.
Although it is possible to translate the English verb 'wonder'as 'preguntarse' in Spanish, the same concept can also be expressed using the future or conditional tenses.
Definition of the imperfect tense as it is used in Spanish.
Learn the usages and conjugation of the future tense in Spanish.
It is almost a rule of thumb that the imperfect tense, rather than the preterite tense, is used to discuss repeated or habitual events in the past. However, there are exceptions.
In the basic sense, the verb tenses are past, present and future. But when learning a foreign language, including Spanish, it's seldom that simple.
Haber is a common auxiliary verb used to form the perfect tenses.
The present indicative tense is the tense first learned by most Spanish students.
A description of the conditional tense in Spanish with examples and their translations.
Do you know the difference between the imperative and preterite tenses? Find out with this self-scoring quiz.
Both the imperfect and preterite tenses are typically used to refer to actions that occurred in the past. Learn how to distinguish between them.
How to conjugate regular verbs, and some common irregular ones, for the indicative future tense.
Unlike English, Spanish has two simple past tenses, the preterite and the imperfect. Although they may often be translated the same way to English, they seldom are interchangeable.
The subjunctive mood has four tenses: present subjunctive, present perfect subjunctive, imperfect subjunctive and past perfect (or pluperfect) subjunctive.
The progressive tenses in Spanish are formed by using a conjugated form of
estar, a verb usually translated as "to be," followed by a gerund, the form of the verb that ends in
-ando or
-iendo.
In English, we talk about something happening a certain time ago. Learn how to express the same thought in Spanish.
Just as in English, the conditional tense of verbs in Spanish is difficult to classify. Unlike the past, future and present tenses, it doesn't always refer to a particular period of time. And while its name suggests that it is used when there's a condition involved, in Spanish it also has some close connections with the future tense.
Because Spanish has both a preterite tense and an imperfect tense, Spanish can use the verb tense to make distinctions about what happened in the past, distinctions that aren't always made in English verb forms. Sometimes the distinction between tenses in Spanish is made by using different verbs in English.
In Spanish the progressive verb forms typically are used in special circumstances or to provide a nuance of meaning that isn't necessarily present in English.
The pluperfect tense is sometimes known as the past perfect tense.
You don't need to know the future tense to talk about future events in Spanish (but you can if you wish).
The future perfect tense is the equivalent of "will have" followed by the past participle. However, this tense has common uses in Spanish that it doesn't in English.
The future tense is used not only to talk about the future, but also to speculate and to give emphatic commands.
If you think that the future tense in Spanish is used to talk about events that will happen in the future, you're only partially right. For the Spanish future tense also has two other uses, one of which corresponds to an English usage and one that does not.
No, there's nothing flawed about imperfect tenses. But they do refer to action that is incomplete.
As their name implies, progressive verbs are used to indicate that the verb's action is, was or will be in progress.
The preterite tense is what is often referred to loosely as the past tense.
Although it isn't mentioned in many textbooks, Spanish does have a future subjunctive verb form. But it isn't used very often.
