The "preterite"
There are two forms of the past in Spanish. One indicates that an event continued
happening for a period of time or was repeated. This is called the "imperfect" past
and it refers to an "unfinished" past event.
The other past form in Spanish is what we call the "preterite". It indicates that an event
took place at some point in the past. Let's look at some examples in English to see what we
mean.
John used to buy cars.
In this case, are we speaking of a one time event or something that continued, or was
repeated over a period of time? We can see that this isn't a single one time event at a point
of time, and then it was done. He was buying cars over a period of time. We aren't pointing
to a particular moment and saying that at that point something different happened which
wasn't happening before, or it stopped happening at that point. As a matter of fact, we
aren't really specifying a point in time.
Let's look at another example.
John was buying cars.
Again, we are seeing something which continued happening for a while and we can't point
out a particular moment when something different happened that wasn't happening
before.
When we say that something "used to happen" or it "was happening" we would use the
"imperfect" past in Spanish. But now let's look at another way of expressing the past in
English.
John bought cars.
Notice that here we use "bought" with the same meaning as "was buying" or "used to
buy". We could say, "When John worked at the Ford dealership he bought cars". In other
words, he continued buying cars for a period of time.
Now let's take another look at the form "bought".
John bought the car.
In this case it is obvious that we are speaking of a one time event and we can focus in on a
particular moment. We could pin down a specific moment, when the money was exchanged
or when they signed the bill of sale. This is the idea that we express with the "preterite".
For most verbs in English we simply add "-ed" to the end of the verb for the past. In many
cases, however, English uses unpredictable irregular forms for the past. The form "bought"
would be an example of this. Actually, "bought" really means "buyed" (although, of
course, we don't actually say it that way).
What's important to remember is that in English, the simple past can be interpreted to
mean "used to do" or "was doing", but also it can mean a single one time event that took
place at a particular moment in the past. This is what we want to focus on now.
Here are the forms that we use in the Spanish "preterite" forms to express one time events
that took place at a particular moment in the past. We only have two parts, the stem and
the ending. For now, we are going to focus on "AR" category verbs.
PRETERITE ……….COMPRAR
I bought -
yo compré
you bought -
tú compraste
he/she bought -
él/ella compró
we bought -
nosotros compramos
they bought -
ellos/ellas compraron
One point that it's important to notice. The preterite past form for "nosotros" looks and is
pronounced exactly the same way that the present form would be. For example, "nosotros
compramos" could mean "we are buying" or "we bought". We would have to get the exact
meaning from the context in which it is used in the sentence.
Let's break the forms down into stem and ending so that we can see a little more clearly
how this form is constructed.
compr é
I bought the car yesterday.
compr aste
You bought the car yesterday.
compr ó
(He/She/ [you] sir-ma ‘am) bought the car yesterday.
compr amos
We bought the car yesterday.
compr aron
They [all male] / [mix group]
They [all females]
All of you/ You all
bought the car yesterday.
Some words and phrases indicate specific time frames, and therefore signal the
use of the preterite.
ayer
esta mañana
(yesterday)
anteayer
(this morning)
esta tarde
(the day before yesterday)
anoche
(this afternoon)
la semana pasada
(last night)
desde el primer momento
(from the first moment)
durante dos siglos
(for two centuries)
el otro día
(the other day)
en ese momento
(at that moment)
entonces
(last week)
el mes pasado
(last month)
el año pasado
(last year)
hace dos días, años
(two days, years ago)
ayer por la mañana
(yesterday morning)
ayer por la tarde
(then)
(yesterday afternoon)