If you are in Year 2 of the liceo linguistico (Italian high school specialising in modern languages), in these last weeks of September your Spanish course is introducing the second of the three past tenses we will use all year. After the pretérito perfecto (which you have probably already seen) comes the indefinido, and from now until November the programme puts the three side by side. In Year 2 the future, the conditional, the imperative, por/para and the first subjunctive also arrive, but the choice between the three past tenses is almost always the first real stumbling block. The test that compares all three usually falls in November: you have five to eight weeks to get there with the scheme clear in your head.
How the three past tenses are formed
First the form, because without it the rule of use is no good to you.
Pretérito indefinido (regular verbs)
| -AR (hablar, to speak) | -ER (comer, to eat) | -IR (vivir, to live) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| yo | hablé | comí | viví |
| tú | hablaste | comiste | viviste |
| él/ella/usted | habló | comió | vivió |
| nosotros/as | hablamos | comimos | vivimos |
| vosotros/as | hablasteis | comisteis | vivisteis |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | hablaron | comieron | vivieron |
The most frequent irregular verbs have a stem of their own and slightly different endings (without an accent). Ser and ir share the same form (fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron; the context tells you which of the two is meant). Then there are estar (estuve, estuviste, estuvo…), tener (tuve…), hacer (hice, hiciste, hizo, hicimos, hicisteis, hicieron), poder (pude…) and decir (dije, dijiste, dijo, dijimos, dijisteis, dijeron). There is no shortcut: they are learned by heart, but they are a small and recurring group.
Pretérito perfecto
Haber in the present + past participle:
| haber | |
|---|---|
| yo | he |
| tú | has |
| él/ella/usted | ha |
| nosotros/as | hemos |
| vosotros/as | habéis |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | han |
Regular participles: -ar → -ado (hablado), -er/-ir → -ido (comido, vivido). Irregular participles to learn by heart: hecho (hacer, to do), dicho (decir, to say), visto (ver, to see), puesto (poner, to put), escrito (escribir, to write), abierto (abrir, to open), vuelto (volver, to return), roto (romper, to break), muerto (morir, to die), cubierto (cubrir, to cover).
Pretérito imperfecto
| -AR (hablar) | -ER/-IR (comer/vivir) | |
|---|---|---|
| yo | hablaba | comía / vivía |
| tú | hablabas | comías / vivías |
| él/ella/usted | hablaba | comía / vivía |
| nosotros/as | hablábamos | comíamos / vivíamos |
| vosotros/as | hablabais | comíais / vivíais |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | hablaban | comían / vivían |
Only three verbs are irregular in the imperfecto: ser (era, eras, era, éramos, erais, eran), ir (iba, ibas, iba, íbamos, ibais, iban) and ver (veía, veías, veía, veíamos, veíais, veían). All the others, even those that are most irregular in the present, follow the general rule.
The rule of use: which past tense to choose
- Perfecto: an action in a period of time that is not finished, or in any case linked to the present. Markers: hoy, esta semana, este mes, ya, todavía no, alguna vez (today, this week, this month, already, not yet, ever). Hoy he desayunado tarde. (I had breakfast late today: today is not over.)
- Indefinido: an action in a period of time that is finished, cut off from the present. Markers: ayer, la semana pasada, el año pasado, en 2020, hace dos años (yesterday, last week, last year, in 2020, two years ago). Ayer desayuné tarde. (I had breakfast late yesterday: the day is already closed.)
- Imperfecto: description, background, habit, a repeated or ongoing action, with no stated beginning or end. Markers: cuando era niño, todos los días, siempre, mientras (when I was a child, every day, always, while). Cuando era niño, desayunaba muy temprano. (When I was a child, I used to have breakfast very early: a habit, not a single event.)
The most useful practical criterion: perfecto and indefinido tell what happened (an event, with a time boundary; only that in the first case the period is still open and in the second it is already closed), while the imperfecto tells how things were or what used to happen, without a boundary.
A note: Spain vs Latin America
In much of peninsular Spain, the perfecto is often also used for actions of a short while ago on the same day (hoy he comido en casa, I ate at home today), while in much of Latin America the indefinido is preferred in that same context (hoy comí en casa). For a school test, the standard your teacher teaches you applies, usually the peninsular one. If in an exercise you find a use that seems “wrong” compared with the rule explained here, first check whether the text comes from Latin America.
The typical mistake: the Italian passato prossimo is not the Spanish perfecto
The point where most mistakes happen is translating the Italian passato prossimo always with the Spanish perfecto, because they look like the same form (ho fatto → he hecho). It is not true: Italian uses the passato prossimo also for facts of yesterday, of last year, of a closed historical time (in many Italian regions the passato remoto has almost disappeared from speech), and in those cases Spanish wants the indefinido, not the perfecto.
- Wrong: Ayer he ido al cine.
- Right: Ayer fui al cine. (Yesterday I went to the cinema.)
Ayer (yesterday) is an already finished period: in standard Spanish it requires the indefinido, even though in Italian you would naturally say ieri sono andato with the passato prossimo. The time marker is the most reliable compass: if it answers “when” and it is a closed time (ayer, la semana pasada, en 2019), it is indefinido; if the time is not yet closed (hoy, esta semana), or there is no marker and it is a habit or a description, consider perfecto or imperfecto according to the criteria above.
Another source of mistakes: -ir verbs with a vowel change
Besides the “strong” irregular verbs seen above (ser/ir, estar, tener, hacer, poder, decir), there is a second group that generates different mistakes: the -ir verbs with a vowel change, which are regular in almost all persons but change vowel only in the third person singular and plural (él/ella and ellos/ellas):
- pedir (to ask for) → pedí, pediste, pidió, pedimos, pedisteis, pidieron (e → i)
- dormir (to sleep) → dormí, dormiste, durmió, dormimos, dormisteis, durmieron (o → u)
- sentir (to feel) → sentí, sentiste, sintió, sentimos, sentisteis, sintieron (e → i)
- preferir, seguir, repetir follow the same pattern as pedir/sentir.
The typical mistake is to regularise the third person as well (wrong: pedió, dormió; right: pidió, durmió), because in the other five persons the verb behaves like any regular verb, and the mind gets used to that pattern. It is worth mentally isolating only the third person singular and plural of this group, because it is the only point where the form departs from the regular -ir conjugation.
There is also an ambiguity that often confuses beginners: ser and ir share exactly the same forms in the indefinido (fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron), and only the context of the sentence tells you which of the two is meant. Fui a Madrid is clearly ir (I went to Madrid), while fui profesor durante diez años is clearly ser (I was a teacher for ten years). It is not a mistake to correct, it is a feature of the language to recognise: if the verb is followed by a place or introduced by a, it is almost always ir; if it introduces a role, a profession or a characteristic, it is ser.
Three worked exercises
Exercise 1: choose the right tense in the text:
Cuando (yo) ___ (ser) pequeño, ___ (vivir) en un pueblo pequeño. Un día, mis padres ___ (decidir) mudarse a la ciudad. Todavía no ___ (yo, acostumbrarse) del todo a la vida urbana, aunque ___ (pasar) ya cinco años desde entonces.
(When I was small, I lived in a small village. One day, my parents decided to move to the city. I have still not completely got used to city life, although five years have already passed since then.)
Solutions:
- era: imperfecto, description/state (what I was like as a child).
- vivía: imperfecto, habit/background (where I usually lived).
- decidieron: indefinido, a single event that moves the story forward.
- me he acostumbrado: perfecto, “todavía no” signals a period that is still open and linked to the present.
- han pasado: perfecto, the five years reach up to now (“desde entonces” links the period to the present).
Exercise 2: put the verb in brackets into the correct tense:
a) La semana pasada (nosotros/visitar) ___ el museo del Prado. (Last week we visited the Prado museum.) b) Esta mañana (yo/desayunar) ___ muy poco. (This morning I had very little for breakfast.) c) Mis abuelos (vivir) ___ en el campo durante toda su vida. (My grandparents lived in the countryside all their lives.) d) ¿(Tú/estar) ___ alguna vez en México? (Have you ever been to Mexico?)
Solutions: a) visitamos: indefinido, “la semana pasada” is a finished period. b) he desayunado: perfecto, “esta mañana” is still within today. c) vivieron: indefinido: “durante toda su vida” describes a duration, but a bounded and finished one (the grandparents no longer live, or in any case a closed period is being told), not a habit without boundaries. d) has estado: perfecto, “alguna vez” (ever, in your life) is the classic marker of life experience, always with the perfecto.
Exercise 3: translate from Italian:
a) “L’anno scorso siamo andati in Grecia.” (Last year we went to Greece.) → El año pasado fuimos a Grecia. (indefinido: finished period, marker “el año pasado”)
b) “Da piccola giocavo sempre con mia sorella.” (As a little girl I always played with my sister.) → De pequeña, siempre jugaba con mi hermana. (imperfecto: repeated habit, “siempre”)
c) “Non ho ancora finito i compiti.” (I have not finished my homework yet.) → Todavía no he terminado los deberes. (perfecto: “todavía no”, period still open)
d) “Mentre cucinavo, ha squillato il telefono.” (While I was cooking, the phone rang.) → Mientras cocinaba, sonó el teléfono. (imperfecto for the background, indefinido for the single event that interrupts)
The most common mistake in exercise (a) is to write hemos ido, translating the Italian passato prossimo directly: “el año pasado” is a closed-time marker, so it wants the indefinido, not the perfecto.
Frequently asked questions
How do I avoid confusing indefinido and imperfecto when they appear in the same sentence? Ask yourself which of the two verbs is the background (it describes the scene, how things were) and which is the event (the specific action that happens in that scene): the background goes to the imperfecto, the event to the indefinido. It is exactly the same mechanism as the French passé composé/imparfait, explained with the same criteria in passé composé or imparfait: the choice explained to Italians.
Does the same logic apply in English? The mechanism is different (English has no tense dedicated only to background description like the imperfecto), but the trap of translating the Italian passato prossimo without thinking about the right tense is the same: I talk about it in past simple or present perfect: the typical mistakes of Italians.
Is there a practice test for Spanish or the languages of the first two years? No, there is not yet a practice test dedicated to Spanish: the school practice tests that exist, for now maths and physics, are on the practice tests for school page.
If you started Spanish in Year 1 with ser, estar and hay, the basic picture is in ser, estar and hay: the rule for the Spanish test. You will find the overall picture of the languages on English and languages, and if you want to revise the three past tenses together before the test you can start with a free introductory call.
