Tenses
https://www.clozemaster.com/blog/spanish-tenses/
regalar
Presente
Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto
Pretérito Perfecto Simple
yo
regalo
he regalado
regalé
tú
regalas
has regalado
regalaste
él/ella/usted
regala
ha regalado
regaló
nosotros
regalamos
hemos regalado
regalamos
vosotros
regaláis
habéis regalado
regalasteis
ellos/ustedes
regalan
han regalado
regalaron
Present tenses
The Spanish present simple tense is generally formed when you want to talk about a habit or something that happens in general.
For example “I eat rice every night” (Como arroz todas las noches) or “She believes no-one deserves to live this way” (Ella cree que nadie merece vivir así).
Past tenses
The past tense is used when you want to talk about events that happened any time before the present moment, whether that be 2000 years ago, 5 months ago, yesterday, or 2 minutes ago.
However, while in English we get by with only one, in Spanish there are two tenses which are used to express the past, and they have very different uses.
Past preterite tense
The past preterite is used when you want to talk about specific events that happened at a certain time in the past. For example, “I sold my house,” (Vendí mi casa) or “the little boy ate a worm” (El niño se comió un gusano).
Like the present tense, the past preterite is formed by changing the endings of the verb, which will be different depending if the verb ends in -ar, -er, or -ir.
AR
ER
IR
Example verb
hablar
comer
abrir
yo
(habl)é
(com)í
(abr)í
tú
(habl)aste
(com)iste
(abr)iste
él/ella
(habl)ó
(com)ió
(abr)ió
nosotros
(habl)amos
(com)imos
(abr)imos
vosotros
(habl)asteis
(com)isteis
(abr)isteis
ellos/ellas
(habl)aron
(com)ieron
(abr)ieron
Yo le regalé un juguete.
I gave him a toy.
Past imperfect tense
The past imperfect tense is used for speaking about past habitual events, like “I used to eat cereal every day,” (Yo comía cereales todos los días) or to give background information or set a scene in the past, such as “The door was opening and closing” (La puerta se abría y se cerraba).
In the imperfect tense, the regular -er and -ir endings are exactly the same, so there are only two distinctions.
AR
ER/IR
Example verb
hablar
comer
yo
(habl)aba
(com)ía
tú
(habl)abas
(com)ías
él/ella
(habl)aba
(com)ía
nosotros
(habl)ábamos
(com)íamos
vosotros
(habl)abais
(com)íais
ellos/ellas
(habl)aban
(com)ían
Future tenses
The future tense is used to talk about events that will happen any time after the present moment. There are two ways to form this in Spanish, which is similar to how we talk about the future in English.
Future inflection
The future inflection is similar to using the world will in English. Instead of changing the endings of the verbs, the future tense takes the whole verb and adds to the end of it. This is therefore a lot easier to remember as there is only one conjugation for all types of verbs.
AR/ER/IR
Example verb
hablar
yo
(hablar)é
tú
(hablar)ás
él/ella
(hablar)á
nosotros
(hablar)emos
vosotros
(hablar)áis
ellos/ellas
(hablar)án
Conditional future/past future
This is essentially the equivalent of the English “would” do something. This could be both in the case of a condition, such as “I would go if you wanted me to” (Yo iría si tú quisieras), or when referring to the future from a point in the past, like “She asked me if I would come back” (Ella me preguntó si yo volvería).
Only in Spanish, instead of having a separate word to express this (as we do in English), this is shown by adding an inflection to the end of the verb, very similar to the future tense.
AR/ER/IR
Example verb
hablar
yo
(hablar)ía
tú
(hablar)ías
él/ella
(hablar)ía
nosotros
(hablar)íamos
vosotros
(hablar)íais
ellos/ellas
(hablar)ían
The conditional tense, like the past imperfect, uses the exact same forms for the first and third person, so being clear with who you’re talking about is usually necessary.
Spanish subjunctive mood
All the previous formations mentioned are in indicative mood, which is named as such because it is indicative of reality. The subjunctive, sometimes referred to as irrealis mood, is used when we talk about something which is uncertain, unknown, or something which is imposed on by something else. There is a whole list of uses for the subjunctive, but you’ll notice that they all follow this same basic notion of surrealism.
Present subjunctive
By far the most common form of subjunctive, the Spanish present subjunctive expresses the idea of uncertainty or unknown-ness in all present or future situations.
Here are some examples. Note that the subjunctive verb almost always follows the connector ‘que’.
When you don’t think something is true.
E.g: I don’t think he’s drinking tonight. | No creo que él tome hoy.
When you hope something will happen.
E.g: I hope he talks to me. | Espero que me hable.
When you talk about the moment something happens in the future.
E.g: When I travel to Uruguay, I’m going to visit all the monuments in the country. | Cuando viaje a Uruguay, voy a conocer todos los monumentos del país.
When you don’t have a specific one in mind.
E.g: Find a chair that can handle this weight. | Encuéntrame una silla que pueda aguantar este peso.
When it’s whatever.
E.g: Do whatever you want. | Haz lo que tú quieras.
When you’re imposing something on somebody else.
E.g: I want you to wash the dishes. | Quiero que laves los platos.
General well-wishing.
E.g: Hope you find a new job soon! | ¡Que encuentres un nuevo trabajo pronto!
(Note that here, you could add ‘espero’ but the sentence also works fine without it.)
These are just the instances I could think of off the top of my head, but there are many more scenarios in which the present subjunctive could be used, so keep that in mind and do some more research if you really want to master the subjunctive.
For the conjugation of the subjunctive, you’ll notice that the endings are almost opposites of the regular present tense endings.
Spanish present subjunctive regular verb chart:
AR
ER/IR
Example verb
hablar
comer
yo
(habl)e
(com)a
tú
(habl)es
(com)as
él/ella
(habl)e
(com)a
nosotros
(habl)emos
(com)amos
vosotros
(habl)éis
(com)áis
ellos/ellas
(habl)en
(com)an
Once again, be careful with the first and third person formations as they are identical. Make it clear who you are talking about.
Past subjunctive
The past subjunctive is basically used in the same way as the present one, but when you are talking about instances in the past. Taking some of the above examples, we can put them in the past tense and employ the past subjunctive instead.
For example:
If you want to say, “I hoped he would talk to me,”:
Espero que él me hable → Yo esperaba que él me hablara.
If you want to say, “I wanted you to wash the dishes,”:
Quiero que laves los platos → Yo quería que lavaras los platos.
At first glance, past subjunctive might seem like the most complicated Spanish tense, but it’s actually quite simple. To form the past subjunctive, you should take the third person plural form of the verb in past preterite, take away -on, and then add the same endings we see in the present subjunctive of ER/IR verbs. You’ll find that there are absolutely no exceptions to this rule – it even works with irregular verbs.
Let’s take a look at how this plays out:
AR
ER/IR
Example verb
hablar
comer
Past preterite third person plural form
hablaron
comieron
yo
(hablar)a
(comier)a
tú
(hablar)as
(comier)as
él/ella
(hablar)a
(comier)a
nosotros
(hablár)amos
(comiér)amos
vosotros
(hablar)eis
(comoer)ais
ellos/ellas
(hablar)an
(comier)an
There are two ways to form the past subjunctive which are completely interchangeable. Which one is used generally just depends on the region. The other one is the same for all 3 verb endings, and looks like this:
AR
Example verb
hablar
Past preterite third person plural form
hablaron
yo
(habla)se
tú
(habla)ses
él/ella
(habla)se
nosotros
(hablá)semos
vosotros
(habla)seis
ellos/ellas
(habla)sen
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