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Spanish tense summary

For most endings, you can separate the tenses in to those that end in -ar, and those that do not.
Here is a summary of the tenses for quick reference. Bear in mind that there are exceptions to the patterns but hopefully you should see some patterns to these.
To form the tenses, you generally remove the last two letters of the verb and replace it with the endings except the future and conditional tenses where you put them at the end of the verb (with exceptions).
Make a note of these endings. They are a constant "theme" with verbs e.g. the nosotros form always ends in -mos.
Subject pronoun General "personal endings" for verbs
(familiar) tú -s
nosotros -mos
(familiar) vosotros replace -mos with 'is', keep stress in the same place (often use the stress mark)
ellos / ellas / ustedes -n

The Present tense

Here are the regular endings:
Subject pronoun AR verb Not AR
yo o o
(familiar) tú as es
él / ella / usted a e
nosotros replace r with mos
(familiar) vosotros replace mos with is
ellos / ellas / ustedes an en
Stress: For most verbs, the stress is on the penultimate syllable

The Imperfect tense (generally for descriptions)

Subject pronoun AR verb Not AR
yo -aba -ía
(familiar) tú -abas -ías
él / ella / usted -aba -ía
nosotros -ábamos
 -íamos
(familiar) vosotros -abais
 -íais
ellos / ellas / ustedes -aban -ían
Stress: On the endings
Only three exceptions with this tense; ir, ser and ver.

The Preterite tense (a completed action in the past)

Subject pronoun AR verb Compromise Not AR
yo -é → -e -í
(familiar) tú -aste -iste ← -iste
él / ella / usted -ó → -o -ió
nosotros -amos
 -imos ← -imos
(familiar) vosotros -asteis
 -isteis ← -isteis
ellos / ellas / ustedes -aron -ieron ← -ieron
The term 'compromise endings' is something that I call them. Those endings exist for some irregular verbs. See my article for more information. For verbs that use the left and right columns, the stress is on those endings. The ones that use the ones in the compromise column has the stress on the penultimate syllable.

The Future tense - the "will" tense (generally for guessing and sometimes to refer to the future)

Put these endings at the end of the verb without changing the verb but there are exceptions to this. All the exceptions are the same for the conditional tense.
These endings are related to the "perfect tense" (he, hemos, han etc.) so if you know those, you can put them at the end of the verb except for the vosotros form which differs.
I put in the letter r in the table because you are listening for a 'ré' / 'rémos' sound.

Verb+perfect tense endings

Standard table
Subject pronoun Ending
yo -ré
(familiar) tú -rás
él / ella / usted -rá
nosotros -remos
(familiar) vosotros -réis
ellos / ellas / ustedes -rán
  Alternate table so you can see the patterns
Subject pronoun Ending
yo -ré
nosotros -remos
(familiar) vosotros-réis
él / ella / usted -rá
(familiar) tú -rás
ellos / ellas / ustedes -rán
Stress: Always on the endings

The Conditional tense - the "would" tense (generally for guessing in the past and for conditions)

Put these endings at the end of the verb without changing the verb but there are exceptions to this. All the exceptions are the same for the future tense.
These endings are related to the -ía endings of the imperfect tense.
I put in the letter r in the table because you are listening for a 'ría' sound.

Verb + ía imperfect tense endings
Subject pronoun Ending
yo -ría
(familiar) tú -rías
él / ella / usted -ría
nosotros -ríamos
(familiar) vosotros -ríais
ellos / ellas / ustedes -rían
Stress: On the ía sound

The Present subjunctive (expresses doubts)

You usually take the tense for the usted form and change the e→a or the a→e, then add the personal endings.
For 'yo-go' verbs such as tengo, pongo, digo etc. change the go→ga and add the endings.
For -cer→zco verbs such as conozco, ofrezco etc. change the co→ca and add the endings.
There are more exceptions to this though.

Subject pronoun General personal endings for verbs
(familiar) tú -s
nosotros -mos
(familiar) vosotros replace -mos with 'is', keep stress in the same place
ellos / ellas / ustedes -n

The Imperfect subjunctive (expresses doubts)

Take the -ron word from the preterite tense and change it to either -ra or -se and add the personal endings. The -ra version is more popular than -se e.g. hablara / hablase or viviera / viviese
Stress: Always in the same place, on -ara / -ase or iéra / iése


Compound tenses

These need a thing called a "past participle" which is a word that you can use with 'to have' such as 'to have done' or 'to have made' etc.
For -ar verbs, replace -ar with -ado.
For the rest, the ending is -ido.
Again, there are exceptions to this rule.
For the following tenses, use the "have" word and add this "past participle" to it e.g. hemos means 'we have'. Hemos comido = We have eaten.

The Perfect tense - have / has done... (a past action with relevance to the present)

Subject pronoun word meaning
yo
nosotros		 he ...
hemos ...		 I have ...
We have ...
él / ella / usted
(familiar) tú
ellos / ellas / ustedes		 ha ...
has ...
han ...		 He / she / you have ...
You have ...
They / you all have ...
(familiar) vosotros habéis ...
 You all have ...

The Past perfect tense (or pluperfect) - had done... (further back in the past)

Make 'haber' in to the imperfect tense
Subject pronoun word meaning
yo había ... I had ...
(familiar) tú habías ... You had ...
él / ella / usted había ... He / she / you had ...
nosotros habíamos ... We had ...
(familiar) vosotros habíais ... You all had ...
ellos / ellas / ustedes habían ... They / you all had ...

The Future perfect tense - will have... (often expresses a guess about what happened in the past)

habr + future endings
Subject pronoun word meaning
yo habré ... I will've ...
(familiar) tú habrás ... You will've ...
él / ella / usted habrá ... He / she / you will've ...
nosotros habremos ... We will've ...
(familiar) vosotros habréis ... You all will've ...
ellos / ellas / ustedes habrán ... They / you all will've ...

The Conditional perfect tense - would have... (used in certain conditional sentences or probability in the past)

habr+conditional endings
Subject pronoun word meaning
yo habría ... I would've ...
(familiar) tú habrías .... You would've ...
él / ella / usted habría ... He / she / you would've ...
nosotros habríamos ... We would've ...
(familiar) vosotros habríais ... You all would've ...
ellos / ellas / ustedes habrían ... They / you all would've ...

The Present perfect subjunctive

This is the subjunctive version of the perfect tense or "have / has" tense.
Subject pronoun word meaning
yo ... que haya ... ... that I have ...
(familiar) tú ... que hayas ... ... that you have ...
él / ella / usted ... que haya ... ... that he / she / you have ...
nosotros ... que hayamos ...
 ... that we have ...
(familiar) vosotros ... que hayáis ...
 ... that you all have ...
ellos / ellas / ustedes ... que hayan ... ... that they / you all have ...

The Past perfect (or pluperfect) subjunctive

This is the subjunctive version of the past perfect tense or "had" tense.
Subject pronoun word meaning
yo ... que hubiera / hubiese ... ... that I had ...
(familiar) tú ... que hubieras / hubieses ... ... that you had ...
él / ella / usted ... que hubiera / hubiese ... ... that he / she / you had ...
nosotros ... que hubiéramos / hubiésemos ...
 ... that we had ...
(familiar) vosotros ... que hubierais / hubieseis ...
 ... that you all had ...
ellos / ellas / ustedes ... que hubieran / hubiesen ... ... that they / you all had ...


The progressive / continuous tenses

These tenses use something called the gerund which is a bit like words in English ending in -ing but they are not always used the same way as in English. See my article to learn more.


[ENGLISH]Have you found an error or do you want to add more information to these pages?
You can contact me at the bottom of the home page.

[ESPAÑOL] ¿Ha encontrado un error o tiene información adicional?
Puede mandarme un mensaje al final de la página principal

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