Transcription
How to hack the past tense in Spanish? So, you're learning español and you hit your first roadblock, the past tense. I'm Professor Nelfer Velilla from Nam Spanish and I've been teaching for 11 years and every time I teach a new student, when they are learning the past, they feel stressed. And that makes sense because you're going to find a lot of irregular verbs and you need to conjugate with new endings. I'm going to explain you all that today.
But, the best thing about this class is that you're going to learn how to hack the past tense. Remember that hacking something in this language means finding a simpler way to say it while you're learning the rest. It doesn't mean that you don't need to learn all the conjugations. But, let's say you're going to travel in 1 month and you don't know any Spanish. It's good to find something to rely on. So, that's why I have developed this system of hacking things and this is the way I learn English.
The same happened to me when I was learning this language because they told me that the past tense was only an ED. You take the verb, for example, to play and then you put ED and that's the past tense. I played, work, worked. But, then I said, "What about eat?" "Eat it? Like this?" And they were like, "Oh, no, no, no. It's irregular. It's ate. I ate." "Okay, what about break? Broke. Understand, understood." And then, "Man, can you give me the irregular verbs?" A huge list. So, I felt so sad at that point and this is when I realized that I could find a way to survive. I didn't know this. I didn't know the regulars. So, I took advantage of something that I'm going to show you because I came up with that idea because you can do the same in español. This is how I figured out this hack.
All right, so let's learn the past tense in Spanish, pasado. When you go to a school, they are going to teach you this. You have three types of verbs, AR, ER, and IR because of the endings, hablar, comer, vivir. And then they say, "Okay, for yo, the first person singular, you're going to put here an E with an accent mark. So, if you want to say hablar in past tense, you remove this and you put this new one and it's hablé. Easy, right?" But, then you need to remember one for you, he, she, they. And it would be hablé, hablaste, habló. That's not what I want to teach you today. For ER and IR verbs, it would be comer, to eat. Comí, you remove the ending. Escribir, to write. It would be escribí and for you, escribiste. You can memorize this. You can practice with this the same way I did it with the ED verbs in English.
But, what I'm going to show you today is if you don't know this, what can you do to sound like more natural in past tense? And for that, you need to remember three important verbs and they are ser, ir, and estar. Let's start with this one. Estar means to be and you already know what to do with this one when you're learning like the A1 level. You say estoy, which means I am, and then you put the ing word. The ing in Spanish would be for AR verbs, ando. So, how do you say dancing? Remember that during this class you can stop the video whenever you want and try to answer what I'm asking. How do you say dancing then? Bailar becomes bailando. Comer becomes comiendo. And what about vivir? It's also iendo, viviendo, escribiendo, right?
So, the only thing that you need to hack this past tense and all of the irregular verbs that we have in español, you need to know only estar in past. So, I found my first obstacle when learning English when I realized you had so many regulars, right? So, what I did was, "Okay, what if I learn only to be in past? I was. And instead of saying I ate, can I say I was eating?" So, I told a guy who knew English and I told him, "Hey, man, can I use this?" And he was like, "Give me a sentence." "I was eating yesterday with my friends." "It might work." he said. But, I spoke like that like for a year and nobody ever told me, "Man, you're hacking the English. That's not fair." No, you're saying something that makes sense and you don't want to sound like a caveman by saying like I eat yesterday, right?
So, this is a cool hack because you only need to remember the word estuve. Remember this V, you can say it like B or V, we don't care. Estube or estuve. Estuve means I was. So, when you want to say something in past and you don't know the conjugation, you don't know if the verb is regular or irregular, you can say only estuve plus the ing version of the verb. So, that would be if I want to say I danced, estuve bailando. It's a cool hack. I don't know how to say I danced. Okay, I know estuve and I know bailando. Estuve bailando, I was dancing last night. Estuve bailando anoche con mis amigos. I was eating, estuve comiendo. Estuve is your keyword for the past for simple actions. I can say like estuve viviendo en Medellín por tres años después, which means after. Después estuve viajando, estuve trabajando, estuve aprendiendo. Again, it's something that is going to be really useful for you while learning the rest.
What about you? I always like to teach this for me and you. Estuve, this E at the end means I, I was. For you, it's going to be the same root, estuve until the V, but the ending changed. Estuviste. You were, estuviste. So, probably if you've seen our videos, you remember this. Every time you're learning a new conjugation or combination of verbs, practice this way. How do you say I was dancing? Estuve bailando. How do you say I was not dancing? You only need to put the no in front. No estuve. And then the verb, no estuve comiendo, no estuve trabajando. And finally, how do you say, let's say you're drunk and you don't remember you were drunk last night and then, "Was I dancing?" So, it would be with deflection in the voice, estuve bailando? See how my tone changes when I'm asking? In Spanish, we don't change the structure, so that's why we have to put the opening question mark, like the upside down one, and the regular one that you already know. But, it's probably going to be more helpful when you ask someone. You're not going to be wondering, "Was I doing this?" You can do that, but it's more useful if you practice questions with you. Estuviste bailando? Were you dancing? It's really useful.
What if you want to ask someone, "What did you do?" Take a moment. You can pause the video. How would you say, "What did you do?" "Oh, I don't know how to say to do hacer in past and it's irregular, by the way." But, what would you say like, "What did you do?" using your hack? Yeah, it would become what were you doing? So, how do you say what were you doing? You already know how to say what, qué. Remember your opening question mark. Were you? It's the same word, estuviste. Qué estuviste? And then how do you say doing? The verb is hacer. You remove the ending and you put the ending for ER verbs. Qué estuviste haciendo? Again, I don't know how to say what did you do. Probably it's irregular, but I know how to say qué estuviste haciendo ayer. What were you doing yesterday? Qué estuviste haciendo en Medellín? What were you doing in Medellín? And then your answer is estuve aprendiendo español con Nam Spanish. Remember that you can visit us in namspanishmedellin.com. We have classes for you there from 5 to 7, only for adults. And we can cover so many hacks for you. We can give you, provide you with a lot of tools to survive while you're traveling.
All right, next. What's the hack that you can create with ser, to be, the other version of to be, and ir, which means to go? In present tense, remember that you can say it is to give an opinion like es importante hablar, right? It's important to speak. Es bueno, es malo, es imposible. You get that, right? The words I'm using are the same in English and in Spanish. Imposible means impossible. It's impossible to learn Spanish. No, it's not impossible because you know this hack.
With ser and ir in past tense, something curious happened. They share the same conjugation. Don't ask me why. We don't care about why. In present tense, it's soy and voy, you know that. Like I'm going to eat, voy a comer. But, in past tense, they have the same conjugation. If I want to say I was like, I was a teacher, like my last job is fui un profesor en la universidad. So, the conjugation is fui. But, if you say I went in Spanish, it would be also fui. How are you going to know? Because of the context. The context is going to tell you if you're saying I was or I went. Por ejemplo, fui a Perú. What do you think that means? I went to Peru because you're saying a place. If you put the A, that fui is I went. Yo fui profesor en la universidad. I was a teacher because you know profesor goes with I was. So, fui and fuiste, then he went or he was, it would be fue. If I say, "Mi abuelo, my grandfather, fue un doctor." What do you think I'm saying? That fue can be is ser or to go? To be or to go? It would be mi abuelo was a doctor. Mi abuelo fue a España. My grandfather was or went? Of course, went to Spain.
Bien, but let's check it first with ir. How can you exploit ir in past tense to hack your Spanish? So, with ir, remember, I went, you went. What you need to do all the time when you're using ir in español is to put an A, like in present tense, voy a, right? I'm going to. Voy a. In past tense, also the A. Fui a. It means I went to. You can use a place. Fui a mi casa, fui a la escuela, fui a la oficina. But, you can also use verbs in AR, ER, and IR form. So, you don't want to say I was eating. You want to say like, "I went to eat." How would you say that? Pause the video if you want. Yeah, it would be fui a comer. I went to dance. Fui a bailar. I went to study to Medellín. Fui a estudiar a Medellín. So, why I'm teaching you another verb here? It's because, yeah, you're now hacking. It's good that you know estuve, but probably you don't If you're telling story, for example, you don't want to say only estuve, estuve, estuve. So, I'm giving you another tool to survive in past. Fui a. Estuve bailando ayer y después fui a comer con mis amigos. I was dancing yesterday and after I went to dance with my friends.
And let's say you want to hack something like, "I couldn't do it." Oh, in this case, like estuve isn't doesn't work that much, right? So, that's why I'm going to give you the hack also for ser. In this case, what you're going to need to use is it was. In present tense, we did it like it is. Es. Es posible. Es bueno trabajar. Es importante aprender español. It's important to learn Spanish. But, in past tense, we're going to use again the third person, which is fue. Fue means it was. And don't get confused here because, remember, ser and estar, they are the same verb, like to be, but we use it in different contexts. When I'm saying like, "I was doing something." I'm going to use the star one. But, when I use, "It was important to do something." I'm going to use ser. So, how do you say important? That's right. Importante. How do you say necessary? Necesario. How do you say possible? Posible. How do you say good? Bueno. How do you say better? Mejor. And then you can feed any adjective here and then you can say, "Fue importante, fue necesario." And you are allowed to use any AR, ER, and IR verb. Let's say you want to practice this and then you say, "Okay, I'm going to practice with the verb to work." Trabajar. Now that you know that you're using trabajar, you can say, "It was important to work." Fue importante trabajar. Fue necesario trabajar. Fue posible trabajar. How do you say, "It was impossible to work yesterday?" Pause the video. Yeah, it would be fue imposible trabajar ayer, which is the word for yesterday. Ayer. Now that we're learning past tense, it's good if you find like time markers in past, like yesterday, last night, last week. It's a really important list because you're going to be speaking about that a lot now that you know this.
All right. If I keep working with trabajar, you can say, "I went to work." Fui a trabajar. Fui a trabajar. I went to work. And then I can practice the star version of the hack. I was working. How do you say that? Pause the video. Yeah, it would be estuve trabajando. So, let's go back. Fue imposible trabajar. Fui a trabajar. Estuve trabajando. All right. And this is what you know. Now you know how to say things like this. You have the English version of the hack. And as you can see, this is what I had when I was learning English by myself. I put it like this and I start to practice in every day with different verbs. I said, for example, "It was important to study. I went to study. I was studying." How do you say all those sentences in Spanish? Let's go. You can pause the video first. There you go. It would be fue importante estudiar. Fui a estudiar. I went to study. Estuve estudiando.
So, at some point when you're studying Spanish, you are going to find these obstacles like, "Oh, man, I need some time to memorize so many regular verbs." What I'm giving you here is the certainty that if you combine it like this, you don't have to stress out with those irregulars. At some point, you'll get there. But, at the beginning, it's good to find something to be able to express what happened. We have covered already the hack for the present tense, so you can go and check it. And also, you can check us at nammaspanishmedellin.com. And remember that if you are enjoying this video, like and subscribe. And be serious. Again, I'm going to say it again. Be serious at nammaspanishmedellin.com, where we're going to teach you real Spanish, real Medellín, >> [music] >> nammaspanishmedellin. >> [music]