Past tenses that stick

The preterite tells what happened: a finished action with a beginning and an end. Regular verbs take these endings on the stem:

• -ar (trabajar): trabajé, trabajaste, trabajó, trabajamos, trabajaron

• -er and -ir (vender, abrir): vendí, vendiste, vendió, vendimos, vendieron

The accents matter. Trabajo is "I work"; trabajó is "he worked". Say them aloud and the stress tells you which is which.

The most common mistake in English speakers' translations is not a wrong ending but a missing past: writing Ayer trabajo or Ayer yo trabajar. If the English says "-ed", "did" or "ago", the Spanish verb must be conjugated in the past, and conjugated for the right person. A time marker is your signal: ayer, anoche, el lunes, la semana pasada, hace dos años (two years ago).

Note that nosotros forms of -ar and -ir verbs are the same in the present and preterite: trabajamos can be either, and the time marker decides. Two short verbs take the regular endings with no accent at all: dar (di, dio, dieron) and ver (vi, vio, vieron).

Spain often uses he trabajado for things that happened earlier today; Latin America uses the preterite. Spelling changes keep the sound in the yo form: llegué, busqué, empecé.

The verbs you use most are irregular in the preterite. Most of them share one useful pattern: a new stem, plus endings with no accent: -e, -iste, -o, -imos, -ieron.

• hacer: hice, hiciste, hizo, hicimos, hicieron

• tener: tuve, tuvo, tuvieron; estar: estuve, estuvo, estuvieron

• poder: pude, pudo, pudieron; poner: puse, puso, pusieron

• venir: vine, vino, vinieron

• ir and ser follow their own pattern, and are identical: fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fueron

Because there is no accent, pudo and hizo look plain; do not "regularize" them into podió or hació. Note the z in hizo, which keeps the sound soft before o.

Fui means both "I went" and "I was". Context decides: Fui a Lima (went), Fue un viaje largo (was).

Pude means "I managed to", and no pude means "I was unable to" on that one occasion. That is why "he couldn't come to the party" is no pudo venir: one event that did not happen (no podía would describe an ongoing inability). Remember that only the first verb is conjugated: no pudo venir, never no pudo vino.

Stem-changing -ir verbs change only in the third person: pidió, pidieron; durmió, durmieron; prefirió. All of these forms are the same in every Spanish-speaking country; only the vosotros form (fuisteis, hicisteis) is limited to Spain.

A small group of verbs takes a j in the preterite stem: decir becomes dij- and traer becomes traj-. They use the same unaccented endings as hice and pude, with one twist in the plural.

• decir: dije, dijiste, dijo, dijimos, dijeron

• traer: traje, trajiste, trajo, trajimos, trajeron

• Same pattern: conducir gives conduje, condujo, condujeron

The twist: after j, the ellos ending is -eron, not -ieron. Dijeron and trajeron are right; dijieron and trajieron are among the most common written errors, even among native speakers.

The other frequent mistake is the present slipping in where the past is needed. In "What did the doctor say?" the English "did" is your cue: ¿Qué dijo el médico?, not ¿Qué dice?, which asks what he says in general.

Traer means bringing something to where the speaker is. If the cake arrived at your house, someone lo trajo; if you took it to someone else's, you lo llevaste. In reported speech, decir is usually followed by que: Me dijo que estaba cansada.

The imperfect describes the past as it used to be: habits, routines and repeated actions with no clear end. The endings are regular and easy:

• -ar: cocinaba, cocinabas, cocinaba, cocinábamos, cocinaban

• -er and -ir: comía, comías, comía, comíamos, comían

• Only three irregulars: ser (era), ir (iba), ver (veía). Hay becomes había.

English marks habits in several ways, and all of them point to the imperfect in Spanish:

• "used to": Jugaba al tenis. I used to play tennis.

• plain past with "always", "every", "usually": Siempre llegaba tarde.

• "would" for a past habit: Los domingos mi abuelo hacía pan. On Sundays my grandfather would make bread.

That last one is a classic trap. When "would" describes a repeated past action, it is the imperfect, not the conditional haría.

Ask yourself: is this a single event, or what typically happened over a period? If you could add "back then" or "regularly", use the imperfect. Solía + infinitive ("used to") is also correct and common everywhere.

When you tell a story, some verbs move the action forward and others paint the scene. The scene goes in the imperfect: the weather, the time, how things looked, what was there.

Weather is where English speakers slip most, because "it was cold" looks like a finished fact. In a story it is background, so Spanish says:

• Hacía frío / calor / sol / viento. (hacer for most weather)

• Llovía or Estaba lloviendo. It was raining.

• Estaba nublado. Había niebla.

Then the events happen against that backdrop in the preterite: Hacía frío, pero salimos igual. It was cold, but we went out anyway.

The trap in reverse is using the preterite for the scene (hizo frío cuando llegamos). The preterite of weather is not wrong in itself, but it sums up a whole period as a finished block: Ayer hizo mucho calor is a verdict on the whole day. If the weather is the setting for something else that happened, use the imperfect.

Words for weather vary a little by region (garúa for drizzle in Peru and Argentina, chipichipi in parts of Mexico), but the tenses work the same everywhere.

Most past sentences in a story mix both tenses. The rule of thumb: the preterite is a snapshot of an event, the imperfect is the film running in the background.

• Preterite: a completed event, a change, something that happened once or a set number of times. Llegó, se rompió, empezó a llover.

• Imperfect: what was going on, a habit, a description, an age or a time. Dormía, era piloto, tenía veinte años.

The clearest case is an interruption. The longer action in progress is imperfect (cocinaba or estaba cocinando); the event that cuts in is preterite: Estaba cocinando cuando se fue la luz.

Another is a habit broken by one occasion: Normalmente comíamos en casa, pero ese día fuimos a un restaurante.

English speakers often choose by the English verb ("was" means imperfect, "-ed" means preterite). Instead, ask what the verb does in the story. "My grandfather was a pilot" describes him: era. "The meeting was on Monday" can be an event: fue el lunes. Time cues help: mientras, siempre and normalmente point to the imperfect; de repente, ese día and una vez point to the preterite.

The present perfect links a past action to now. It is haber in the present plus a past participle: he, has, ha, hemos, han + -ado or -ido. He trabajado, has comido, hemos vivido. The participle never changes for gender or number, and nothing goes between haber and the participle: Ya lo he hecho, not he lo hecho.

Three of the most common verbs have irregular participles:

• hacer: hecho (never hacido)

• decir: dicho

• ver: visto

Use it for experiences up to now (nunca, alguna vez), for things that have or have not happened yet (ya, todavía no), and for periods still running (este año, hasta ahora).

Here the varieties really differ. In Spain, the present perfect is also normal for anything earlier today: Esta mañana he visto a Juan. Most of Latin America uses the preterite there (Esta mañana vi a Juan), and in Rioplatense Spanish the preterite is common even with nunca and todavía. Both are correct for their region. In this lesson, aim for the present perfect where the English uses "have" with ever, never, yet or so far.

The pluperfect steps one stage further back. When you are already telling a story in the past and need to mention something that happened before that, use the imperfect of haber plus a participle:

• había, habías, había, habíamos, habían + -ado / -ido

• Irregular participles still apply: había hecho, había dicho, había visto, había vuelto, había puesto.

English has the same tense ("had left"), but speakers often drop it and say "When we got there, the train already left". In Spanish the tense is not optional, because it changes the meaning: Cuando llegamos, el tren salió means it left as we arrived. Cuando llegamos, el tren ya había salido means we missed it.

Words that signal the pluperfect: ya (already), nunca... antes (never before), todavía no (not yet, at that point), and a reason that comes from earlier (porque había trabajado toda la noche).

A quick test: put the two events on a timeline. If the one you are describing comes first, but the story is told from the later point, it takes había + participle. This tense works the same way in every region, including those that prefer the preterite over the present perfect.