Herramientas de la lengua
Verbos: Los siete tiempos sencillos
Why do you want to know this?
We spend a lot of our time using simple verb tenses and while some of them are very easy (like the present and the future) some are a bit more complicated (like the preterite, imperfect and subjunctive). Whether you have already studied them or you have no idea what these verb tenses are, you will benefit from practicing them below!
1. Los tiempos sencillos
What are they?
Simple verb tenses are the verbs that are conjugated with one word
- I eat – Yo como
- I danced – Yo bailé
This is in contrast to compound verb tenses that use two verbs (an auxiliary and the verb)
- I have eaten – Yo he comido
- I had danced – Yo había bailado
Which are the seven simple tenses?
They are: present, future, preterite, imperfect, conditional, present subjunctive and imperfect subjunctive. If you learned Spanish at home chances are you use them without knowing what they are called. If you learned Spanish in a classroom setting, you will probably remember learning them.
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2. Presente
We use the present to speak about things happening in the present (Yo como una manzana) and sometimes also to talk in the future after we establish we are doing (Mañana llego a las ocho)
How do we conjugate it?
There are verbs that change their root or spelling in the present. You can always consult a dictionary or this verb conjugator to find answers. Also, this site gives a deep explanation if you want to look.
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3. Futuro
We use this tense to talk about something that will happen. While this tense is the “oficial” future tense, we also use the construction ir + infinitive to refer to the future.
Yo voy a comer
Ella va a bailar
Sometimes we use the above construction more than the actual “oficial” future, but it is still good to practice it.
How do we conjugate it?
Some things to remember:
Remember to put accent marks
Some verbs are irregular in the future tense, for example
decir → dir-
poder → podr-
poner → pondr-
querer → querr-
tener → tendr-
venir → vendr-
There are verbs that change their root or spelling in the future. You can always consult a dictionary or this verb conjugator to find answers. Also, this site gives a deep explanation if you want to look.
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4. Pretérito
The Preterite Tense is one of two ways to talk about events that happened in the past in Spanish (the other one is the “Imperfect”. The preterite tense is used to indicate a completed action that took place at a specific point in time. For example
- Armando me llamó a las nueve.
- Regresaron de España ayer.
- Olivia se fue esta tarde.
How do we conjugate it?
Some things to remember:
Use the accent mark for “yo” and “él/ella/ud.” every time!
There are a lot of verbs that change their root or spelling in the preterite. You can always consult a dictionary or this verb conjugator to find answers. Also, this site gives a deep explanation if you want to look.
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5. Imperfecto
The Imperfect Tense is one of two ways to talk about events that happened in the past in Spanish (the other one is the “Preterite”. The imperfect tense is used to:
describe repeated, habitual, or usual actions in the past
Siempre llegaba a la escuela temprano.
describe actions that were ongoing in the past
Yo dibujaba mientras que ella pintaba.
describe what things were like in the past
La ciudad era vieja y sucia.
describe time and people’s ages in the past
Isabel tenía ocho años.
How do we conjugate it?
Some things to remember:
Use the accent mark every time with ER and IR verbs!
There are a lot of verbs that change their root or spelling in the imperfect. You can always consult a dictionary or this verb conjugator to find answers. Also, this site gives a deep explanation if you want to look
¡Practiquemos!
¡Hola! A continuación tienes algo para practicar. Debes lograr al menos 80% ¡Suerte!
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6. Condicional
The conditional is a verb conjugation used when some action is based upon some condition or somehow contingent on something else. This corresponds to the English use of the word “would.” For example:
“What would you do?” “I would sing louder.”
¿Qué harías? Yo cantaría más alto
How do we conjugate it?
Some things to remember:
Use the accent mark every time in all of them!
There are a lot of verbs that change their root or spelling in the conditional. You can always consult a dictionary or this verb conjugator to find answers. Also, this site gives a deep explanation if you want to look.
¡Practiquemos!
¿Quieres practicar más? Practica aquí
¡Hola! A continuación tienes algo para practicar. Debes lograr al menos 80% ¡Suerte!
7. Presente del subjuntivo
Chances are if you learned Spanish at home you use the subjunctive to some degree unless English became extremely dominant before you were twelve, which is the average age when a monolingual child acquires the subjunctive. Now, if you learned Spanish in the classroom, you probably remember the subjunctive and hopefully enjoy trying to figure out when to use it.
Unlike the other verb tenses we have visited, the subjunctive is tricky because it doesn’t express actual things that have happened or will happen, instead it is used to convey desire, express doubt, or discuss non-concrete situations.
Yo dudo que me llamen
Mi mamá quiere que yo estudie
We go into the subjunctive in more depth in THIS UNIT, for now let’s just review its conjugation
How do we conjugate it?
It can be helpful to use “que” before conjugating the subjunctive. For example,
Mi mamá quiere que…
Some things to remember:
There are a some of verbs that change their root or spelling in the conditional. You can always consult a dictionary or this verb conjugator to find answers. If you want to get into the subjunctive deeper, you can read more about it here
¡Practiquemos!
¿Quieres practicar más? Practica aquí
8. Imperfecto del subjuntivo
From all the simple tenses, the imperfect subjunctive is the one people struggle with the most because there are ways of saying the same thing to avoid using it so many just avoid it. Still, it can be a very helpful tense to convey desire, express doubt, or discuss non-concrete situations that happened in the past.
Yo dudaba que me llamaran
Mi mamá quería que yo estudiara
We go into the imperfect subjunctive in more depth in THIS UNIT, for now let’s just review its conjugation
How do we conjugate it?
There are two ways to do it (ej. Cantara or cantase)
It can be helpful to use “que” before conjugating the subjunctive. For example,
Mi mamá quería que…
Some things to remember:
Don’t forget the accent marks in the “nosotros”
There are some of verbs that change their root or spelling in the conditional. You can always consult a dictionary or this verb conjugator to find answers. If you want to get into the subjunctive deeper, you can read more about it here
¡Practiquemos!
¿Quieres practicar más? Practica aquí
This unit “Los siete tiempos simples” was created by Alegría Ribadeneira by combining original material and sections about verbs from Spanish411.net, licensed CC BY-NC-SA and Spanish Grammar Manual by Enrique Yépez licensed CC BY-NC-SA.
