The Past Tense in Spanish:  how to master the pretérito indefinido ⏳🇪🇸

If you're learning Spanish and want to talk about what you did yesterday, where you went last weekend, or what happened last year — you need the pretérito indefinido 👍, one of the most common ⌛ past tenses in Spanish. 

📌 What is the Pretérito Indefinido and when do we use it?

The pretérito indefinido is the Spanish equivalent of the past simple in English. It is used to talk about completed actions in the past — things that happened at a specific time and are now finished.

We use it when:

✔️ An action happened once
✔️ It has a clear beginning and end
✔️ It occurred at a specific moment
✔️ We’re telling a sequence of events

💬 Think of it as saying:
👉 I went, I saw, I ate, I worked…

🧾 Examples:

Ayer comí pizza. (Yesterday I ate pizza.) 🍕

El año pasado viví en Madrid. (Last year I lived in Madrid.) 🏙️

Se levantó, se duchó y salió. (He got up, showered and left.) 🚿

⚠️ If you want to describe habits or what things were like in the past, you'll need the imperfect tense instead.

Check on our blog 🔗👉: The Imperfect Tense in Spanish

🧠 How to Form the Pretérito Indefinido in Spanish?

The tense is formed by removing the infinitive ending (-ar, -er, -ir) and adding the preterite endings.

🔤 Regular verb conjugation

⚠️ Irregular verbs conjugation

Some verbs change their stem and do not use accents. These are important to practice and memorize.

💡 These verbs are very frequent in real conversations!

🔸Irregular verb endings (no accents!):

 ⚠️Verbs with stems ending in -j (like decir → dij-) drop the “i” in the third person plural: dijeron (not dijieron).

🗓️ What time markers do we use?

These expressions help us identify when to use the pretérito indefinido:

📌 Common time expressions:

ayer  (yesterday)

anoche (last night)

la semana pasada (last week)

el mes pasado (last month)

el otro día (the other day)

hace + cantidad de tiempo  - 'hace dos días' (two days ago)

en 2015 (in 2015)

una vez (once)

de repente (suddenly)

Example:

Hace tres años viajé a México. (Three years ago I travelled to Mexico.) ✈️

🧩Common Uses of the Pretérito Indefinido in Spanish

This tense is used for narrating specific and finished events in the past. Here are the most typical situations:

✅ 1. Completed actions

🧾 Estudié medicina en la universidad. (I studied medicine at university.) 🎓

🧾 Comimos en ese restaurante hace dos días. (We ate at that restaurant two days ago.) 🍽️

✅ 2. One-time events

🧾 Una vez viajé sola a Argentina. (Once I travelled alone to Argentina.) ✈️

🧾 Conocí a mi mejor amigo en una fiesta. (I met my best friend at a party.) 🥳

✅ 3. Sequences of actions

🧾 Me levanté, me duché y salí de casa. (I got up, showered and left the house.) 🚿🚪

🧾 Primero llamé a Marta, luego fui al supermercado. (First I called Marta, then I went to the supermarket.) 📞🛒

✅ 4. Specific time frames

🧾 Viví en Chile durante seis meses. (I lived in Chile for six months.) 🇨🇱

🧾 Trabajé en esa empresa entre 2018 y 2020. (I worked at that company from 2018 to 2020.) 🏢

✅ 5. Sudden changes or emotional reactions

🧾 Cuando me lo dijo, me enfadé mucho. (When he told me, I got really angry.) 😡

🧾 En cuanto escuchó la noticia, empezó a llorar. (As soon as she heard the news, she started crying.) 😢

📘 How to use "ser" in the pretérito indefinido

The verb ser (to be) is irregular and shares the same form as ir (to go) in the past. Don’t worry — the context will tell you which one it is. 😄

✅ Conjugation:

Yo fui 
Tú fuiste 
Él/ella/usted  fue 
Nosotros/as  fuimos 
Vosotros/as fuisteis
Ellos/ellas/ustedes fueron 

🧾 Example:

La película fue muy emocionante. 📽️

Mi primer día de clase fue un desastre. 😫

¿Cómo fue tu fin de semana? 🤗

📝 Summary

✔️ The pretérito indefinido is the go-to tense for finished actions in the past.
✔️ Use it with time expressions like ayer, el otro día, la semana pasada.
✔️ Regular verbs follow clear patterns, but many irregular verbs must be memorised.
✔️ Use it for completed actions, one-time events, sequences and emotional reactions.
✔️ The verb ser is irregular — but essential for telling past stories!

👇✍️ Now do these exercises to practice ✍️👇

🔚 Now that you’ve completed the activity, you’ve practised both regular and irregular verbs in the pretérito indefinido. Keep paying attention to common patterns and irregular stems — they’re essential for telling stories and sharing past experiences in Spanish! 💬🇪🇸

Write a short sentence using the pretérito indefinido and one of the time markers above.👇 Leave your sentence in the comments and keep practising!

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