Spanish past tenses explained (with pictures, not headaches)

✌🏼 ¡Hola aventurero!

Comí, comía, he comido… three ways to say "I ate", and your textbook gives each one its own chapter of rules 😵‍💫

Here's the thing: in Spain, people use all three every single day, often in the same conversation. So in this post you'll get the Spanish past tenses explained the visual way, with three simple pictures you can hold in your head while you speak.

Same idea as my Visual Spanish Grammar Book: fewer rules, more pictures.

1The three past tenses you'll hear in Spain

Here they are side by side. Don't worry about the endings yet, just the pictures:

In English grammar books, the indefinido is usually called the preterite and the perfecto is the present perfect. Same tenses, different names.

Let's look at each picture.

2The open box: he comido

Picture today as a box. It isn't closed yet, because the day is still going. Anything you did inside an open box goes in the pretérito perfecto.

The same goes for esta semana (this week), este mes, este año and alguna vez (ever), because those boxes are still open too.

You make it with haber in the present plus a participle: -ado for -ar verbs, -ido for -er and -ir verbs.

A few common participles are irregular: hecho (done), dicho (said), visto (seen), puesto (put), escrito (written), vuelto (come back), abierto (opened) and roto (broken).

3The closed box: comí

Now picture yesterday. It's over, the box is closed. Anything that happened inside it is a dot in a closed box: the pretérito indefinido.

Closed boxes: ayer, anoche (last night), el lunes, la semana pasada, el año pasado, en 2019, hace tres años (three years ago).

Notice that -er and -ir verbs share one set of endings, so there are only two sets to learn. And hablamos and vivimos look exactly like the present. The time word tells you which one it is.

The irregular verbs are, of course, the ones you use most 🙃 Learn these as whole words: fui (I went / I was, from both ir and ser), estuve (I was, from estar), tuve (I had) and hice (I did / I made).

4The line in the background: comía

The third picture isn't a box. It's a long line running behind your dots: what was going on, what things were like, or what used to happen. That's the pretérito imperfecto.

Good news: only three verbs are irregular here. Ser (era), ir (iba) and ver (veía).

You'll use the line for:

• Descriptions: La casa era vieja y tenía un patio precioso. (The house was old and had a lovely courtyard.)
• Things that used to happen: Antes la gente no tenía móvil. (People didn't use to have mobiles.)
• What was going on when something happened: Estábamos cenando cuando se fue la luz. (We were having dinner when the power went off.)
• The scene: Era tarde y no había nadie en la calle. (It was late and there was nobody in the street.)

In the third one, estábamos cenando is the line and se fue la luz is the dot that lands on it.

5Open box or closed box?

This is the choice that confuses most learners, because English often uses "I ate" for both. In Spanish, look at the box:

See the last row? You ask with the open box (alguna vez), but as soon as you give a date, the box closes.

6All three in one chat

Here's a Monday morning at work. Watch the boxes and the line:

Fuimos and vimos: the weekend is over, closed box. Hacía, eran, llovía and estaba: the line in the background. He perdido, he llegado and has hablado: this morning, open box ✨

If you want more practice with this exact conversation, have a look at how to talk about your weekend in Spanish.

7Practise it this week

1. 1

   Describe a photo from your phone

   Pick a photo from a day out last year. Describe the scene with the line: Hacía sol, llevaba un sombrero, había mucha gente. Then say what happened that day with dots: Ese día fuimos a la playa y comimos en un chiringuito.

2. 2

   Tell someone about your morning

   Today is an open box. Say three things you've done so far, out loud: Hoy he desayunado, he ido al trabajo y he hablado con mi hermana.

3. 3

   Ask the "alguna vez" question

   Ask a friend or classmate ¿Has estado alguna vez en…? When they say yes, ask ¿Cuándo fuiste? and listen for the switch from open box to closed box.

You'll still mix them up sometimes. That's fine. People will understand you, and every mix-up you notice is one you won't make next time 💛

If timelines and colour-coded tables work for you, my Visual Spanish Grammar Book explains the rest of Spanish grammar the same way. And if you liked these pictures, the same idea helps with ser or estar.

Now I want to know 👀 Which of the three past tenses trips you up most? Cuéntame in the comments!

Lucía · Linguist, translator, Spanish teacher and author of the Visual Spanish Grammar Book.
Come and learn Spanish with me and other aventureros like yourself at skool.com/learnspanish 🎉