Talking About the Past: The Preterite & the Imperfect

Spanish has two everyday past tenses, and once you can tell them apart you can tell almost any story. One of them, the preterite, snaps a photo of a finished action. The other, the imperfect, paints the background scenery. This lesson gives you clear tables, real examples, and simple rules so you can start describing yesterday, last year, and the good old days with confidence.

1. The Preterite (el pretérito): completed actions

Use the preterite when something happened and finished. It answers the question "what happened?" Think of a single, complete event with a clear end: Comí una manzana. (I ate an apple.)

To build it, drop the -ar, -er, or -ir ending and add the preterite endings. The good news: -er and -ir verbs share the exact same set of endings, so you only learn two patterns.

Here is a regular -ar verb, hablar (to speak):

Now the shared -er / -ir pattern, with comer (to eat) and vivir (to live):

Watch the accent! In regular preterites, the yo and él/ella forms carry a written accent on the last letter: hablé / habló, comí / comió. That little mark changes the meaning, so never skip it.

• ⚠️ Common mistakes: writing "hablo" (I speak, present) when you mean "habló" (he spoke) — the accent decides who and when.
• ⚠️ Do not mix the endings: -ar verbs never take -ió; that ending belongs to -er/-ir verbs.

2. Key irregular preterites

A handful of very common verbs are irregular in the preterite. They are worth memorizing early because you will use them constantly. Notice that these irregular forms have no written accent on the yo and él/ella endings.

A fun surprise: ser (to be) and ir (to go) are identical in the preterite. Context tells them apart. Fui médico. means "I was a doctor," while Fui a casa. means "I went home."

The full plural forms follow the same stems: tuvimos (we had), hicieron (they did), estuvieron (they were), fueron (they were / they went). One spelling note: for hacer, the él/ella form is hizo with a z, to keep the soft sound.

3. The Imperfect (el imperfecto): description & habit

The imperfect sets the scene. Use it for descriptions, for how things used to be, for repeated habits, and for actions that were happening (with no clear end). Think: Cuando era niño, jugaba mucho. (When I was a child, I used to play a lot.)

The endings are wonderfully regular. -ar verbs take one set; -er and -ir verbs share another.

The imperfect has only three irregular verbs in the whole language. Learn these three and you know every exception there is:

4. Preterite vs. Imperfect: which one?

This is the big question, and the simple version is this: the preterite tells you what happened — a single, completed event. The imperfect gives the background — description, how things were, and things that happened repeatedly or habitually ("used to," "was ___-ing"). In one sentence, the imperfect is often the scenery and the preterite is the action that interrupts it.

Compare these pairs:

• Ayer comí paella. — Yesterday I ate paella. (one finished event → preterite)
• De niño, comía paella los domingos. — As a child, I used to eat paella on Sundays. (repeated habit → imperfect)
• Mientras cocinaba, sonó el teléfono. — While I was cooking, the phone rang. (background + interrupting event)

A quick way to decide: look at the time markers in the sentence. Certain words almost always point to one tense.

• ⚠️ Common mistakes: using the preterite for a description of how someone felt or looked. "She was tired" is background → Estaba cansada., not "estuvo."
• ⚠️ "Used to" and "was ___-ing" are almost always the imperfect. If you can say "used to," reach for the imperfect.

Do not worry if choosing between these two tenses feels tricky at first — even the trickiness is a sign your brain is doing the real work. With every story you tell, the pattern gets clearer: photo or scenery, event or background. Keep practicing out loud, celebrate the forms you already know, and give yourself credit. You are learning to talk about your whole past in Spanish. ¡Buen trabajo!