First person

The grammatical first person refers to the speaker ("I"). The first person plural refers to the speaker together with at least one other person.

• (Yo) soy: "I am"
• (Nosotros/Nosotras) somos: "We are"; the feminine form nosotras is used only when referring to a group that is composed entirely of females; otherwise, nosotros is used.

Second person

The grammatical second person refers to the addressee, the receiver of the communication ("you"). Spanish has different pronouns (and verb forms) for "you," depending on the relationship, familiar or formal, between speaker and addressee.

Singular forms

• (Tú) eres: "You are"; familiar singular; used when addressing someone who is of close affinity (a member of the family, a close friend, a child, a pet). It is also the form used to address a deity.
• (Vos) sos: "You are"; familiar singular; generally used in the same way as tú. Its use is restricted to some areas of Hispanic America; where tú and vos are both used, vos is used to denote a closer affinity.
• (Usted) es: "You are"; formal singular; used when addressing a person respectfully, someone older, someone not known to the speaker, or someone of some social distance. Although it is a second-person pronoun, it uses third-person verb forms (and object pronouns and possessives) because it developed as a contraction of vuestra merced (literally, "your mercy" or "your grace").

Plural forms

• (Vosotros/Vosotras) sois: "You (all) are"; familiar plural; used when addressing people who are of close affinity (members of the family, friends, children, pets). The feminine form vosotras is used only when addressing a group composed entirely of females; otherwise, vosotros is used. Used primarily in Spain but is also used in Equatorial Guinea and the Philippines, though it may appear in old, formal texts from other countries, such as the first initial line of the Argentine national anthem ("Oíd, mortales, el grito sagrado").
• (Ustedes) son: "You (all) are"; formal plural where vosotros is used; both familiar and formal plural elsewhere. Where it is strictly formal, used when addressing people respectfully or addressing people of some social distance. Like usted, it uses third-person verb forms, for the same reasons.

Third person

The grammatical third person refers to a person or thing other than the speaker or the addressee.

Singular forms

• (Él) es: "He/it is"; used for a male person or a thing of masculine (grammatical) gender.
• (Ella) es: "She/it is"; used for a female person or a thing of feminine (grammatical) gender.
• (Ello) es: "It is"; used to refer to neuter nouns such as facts, ideas, situations, and sets of things; rarely used as an explicit subject.

Plural forms

• (Ellos) son: "They are"; used for a group of people or things that includes at least one person or thing of masculine (grammatical) gender.
• (Ellas) son: "They are"; used for a group of people or things that are all of feminine (grammatical) gender.

Infinitive

The infinitive is generally the form found in dictionaries. It corresponds to the English "base-form" or "dictionary form" and is usually indicated in English by "to _____" ("to sing," "to write," etc.). The ending of the infinitive is the basis of the names given in English to the three classes of Spanish verbs:

• "-ar" verbs (primera conjugación ["first conjugation"])

Examples: hablar ("to speak"); cantar ("to sing"); bailar ("to dance")

• "-er" verbs (segunda conjugación ["second conjugation"])

Examples: beber ("to drink"); leer ("to read"); comprender ("to understand")

• "-ir" verbs (tercera conjugación ["third conjugation"])

Examples: vivir ("to live"); sentir ("to feel"); escribir ("to write")

Gerund

Although in English grammar the gerund refers to the -ing form of the verb used as a noun, in Spanish the term refers to a verb form that behaves more like an adverb. It is created by adding the following endings to the stem of the verb (i.e. the infinitive without the last two letters):

• -ar verbs: -ando

Examples: hablando ("speaking"); cantando ("singing"); bailando ("dancing")

• -er verbs: -iendo

Examples: bebiendo ("drinking"); leyendo (with spelling change; "reading"); comprendiendo ("understanding")

• -ir verbs: -iendo

Examples: viviendo ("living"); sintiendo (with stem-vowel change; "feeling"); escribiendo ("writing")

Certain verbs have irregular gerund forms:

• Most -ir verbs undergo a predictable stem-vowel change: sentir → sintiendo, medir → midiendo, repetir → repitiendo, dormir → durmiendo, morir → muriendo. One -er verb also belongs to this group: poder → pudiendo.
• In verbs whose stem ends in a vowel, the spelling of the -iendo ending is changed to -yendo: oír → oyendo, caer → cayendo, leer → leyendo, traer → trayendo, construir → construyendo, huir → huyendo. The "stemless" verb ir belongs to this group, with yendo.
• For -er and -ir verbs whose stem ends in ⟨ñ⟩ or ⟨ll⟩, the -iendo ending is reduced to -endo: tañer → tañendo, bullir → bullendo.^[4]

The gerund has a variety of uses and can mean (with haciendo, for example) "doing/while doing/by doing/because of one's doing/through doing" and so on. It is also used to form progressive constructions, such as estoy haciendo ("I am doing"). The gerund cannot be used as an adjective and generally has no corresponding adjectival forms. The now-mostly archaic present participle, which ended in -ante or -iente and formerly filled this function, in some cases survives as such an adjective (e.g. durmiente ("sleeping"), interesante ("interesting")), but they are limited, and in cases where it does not, other constructions must be used to express the same ideas: where in English one would say "the crying baby", one would say in Spanish el bebé que llora ("the baby who's crying"; llorante is archaic).

Past participle

The past participle corresponds to the English -en or -ed form of the verb. It is created by adding the following endings to the verb stem:

• -ar verbs: -ado

Examples: hablado ("spoken"); cantado ("sung"); bailado ("danced")

• -er verbs: -ido

Examples: bebido ("drunk"); leído (requires accent mark; "read"); comprendido ("understood")

• -ir verbs,: -ido

Examples: vivido ("lived"); sentido ("felt"); hervido ("boiled")

The past participle, ending invariably in -o, is used following the auxiliary verb haber to form the compound or perfect: (Yo) he hablado ("I have spoken"); (Ellos) habían hablado ("They had spoken"); etc.

When the past participle is used as an adjective, it inflects for both gender and number – for example, una lengua hablada en España ("a language spoken in Spain").

Simple tenses (tiempos simples)

The simple tenses are the forms of the verb without the use of a modal or helping verb. The following are the simple tenses and their uses:

Compound tenses (tiempos compuestos)

All the compound tenses are formed with haber followed by the past participle of the main verb. Haber changes its form for person, number, and the like, while the past participle remains invariable, ending with -o regardless of the number or gender of the subject.

Affirmative imperative (imperativo positivo)

The positive form of the imperative mood in regular verbs is formed by adding the following to the stem:

The singular imperative tú coincides with the third-person singular of the indicative for all but a few irregular verbs. The plural vosotros is always the same as the infinitive, but with a final -d instead of an -r in the formal, written form; the informal spoken form is the same as the infinitive. The singular vos drops the -r of the infinitive, requiring a written accent to indicate the stress.

Negative imperative (imperativo negativo)

For the negative imperative, the adverb no is placed before the verb, and the following endings are attached to the stem:

Note that in the imperative, the affirmative second-person forms differ from their negative counterparts; this is the only case of a difference in conjugation between affirmative and negative in Spanish.

Examples

Simple tenses (tiempos simples)

Compound tenses (tiempos compuestos)

In the subjunctive mood, the subjunctive forms of the verb haber are used with the past participle of the main verb.

"True" passive

The "true" passive is formed with ser + the past participle, which in this case behaves like a normal adjective. Thus:

• Yo soy amado = "I [masc.] am loved"
• Tú eras amada = "You [fem.] were being loved"
• Nosotros seremos amados = "We [masc.] will be loved"
• Ellas habrían sido amadas = "They [fem.] would have been loved"

The "true" passive is used in a variety of situations, but its use is somewhat more limited than that of its English counterpart.

Se passive

In the third person, reflexive constructions are often used to express ideas that could also be expressed in the passive. In such constructions, the recipient of the action is said to do the action to itself. Thus:

• Se habla español = "Spanish is spoken" (lit. "Spanish speaks itself")
• Se me dio el libro = "The book was given to me" (lit. "The book gave itself to me")
• Se perdieron los datos = "The data were lost" (lit. "The data lost themselves")
• Se puede hacer [ello] = "It can be done" (lit. "It can do itself")

The se passive is very common in the third person, but equivalent constructions cannot be used for the first and second persons: Yo me amo always translates to "I love myself" and never "I am loved".

Fundamental meanings of the preterite and the imperfect

Spanish has two fundamental past tenses, the preterite and the imperfect. Strictly speaking, the difference between them is one not of tense but of aspect, in a manner that is similar to that of the Slavic languages. However, within Spanish grammar, they are customarily called tenses.

The difference between the preterite and the imperfect (and in certain cases, the perfect) is often hard to grasp for English speakers. English has just one past-tense form, which can have aspect added to it by auxiliary verbs, but not in ways that reliably correspond to what occurs in Spanish. The distinction between them does, however, correspond rather well to the distinctions in other Romance languages, such as between the French imparfait and passé simple / passé composé or between the Italian imperfetto and passato remoto / passato prossimo.

The imperfect fundamentally presents an action or state as being a context and is thus essentially descriptive. It does not present actions or states as having ends and often does not present their beginnings either. Like the Slavic imperfective past, it tends to show actions that used to be done at some point, as in a routine. In this case, one would say Yo jugaba ("I used to play"), Yo leía ("I used to read"), or Yo escribía ("I used to write").

The preterite (as well as the perfect, when applicable) fundamentally presents an action or state as being an event, and is thus essentially narrative. It presents actions or states as having beginnings and ends. This also bears resemblance to the Slavic perfective past, as these actions are usually viewed as done in one stroke. The corresponding preterite forms would be Yo jugué ("I played"), Yo leí ("I read") or Yo escribí ("I wrote").

As stated above, deciding whether to use the preterite or the imperfect can present some difficulty for English speakers. But there are certain topics, words, and key phrases that can help one decide if the verb should be conjugated in the preterite or the imperfect. These expressions co-occur significantly more often with one or the other of the two tenses, corresponding to a completed action (preterite) or a repetitive action or a continuous action or state (imperfect) in the past.

Key words and phrases that tend to co-occur with the preterite tense:

E.g.: Esta mañana comí huevos y pan tostado ("This morning I ate eggs and toast")

Key words and phrases that tend to co-occur with the imperfect tense:

E.g.: Cada año mi familia iba a Puerto Rico. ("Each year my family went to Puerto Rico.")

Comparison with English usage

The English simple past can express either of these concepts. However, there are devices that allow us to be more specific. Consider, for example, the phrase "the sun shone" in the following contexts:

1. "The sun shone through his window; John knew that it was going to be a fine day."
2. "The sun was shining through his window; John knew that it was going to be a fine day."
3. "The sun shone through his window back in those days."
4. "The sun used to shine through his window back in those days."
5. "The sun shone through his window the moment that John pulled back the curtain."

In the first two, it is clear that the shining refers to the background to the events that are about to unfold in the story. It is talking about what was happening. One has a choice between making this explicit with the past continuous, as in (2), or using the simple past and allowing the context to make it clear what is intended, as in (1). In Spanish, these would be in the imperfect, optionally in the imperfect continuous.

In (3) and (4), it is clear that the shining refers to a regular, general, habitual event. It is talking about what used to happen. One has a choice between making this explicit with the expression "used to," as in (4), or using the simple past and allowing the context to make it clear what we mean, as in (3). In Spanish, these would be in the imperfect, optionally with the auxiliary verb soler.

In (5), only the simple past is possible. It is talking about a single event presented as occurring at a specific point in time (the moment John pulled back the curtain). The action starts and ends with this sentence. In Spanish, this would be in the preterite (or alternatively in the perfect, if the event has only just happened).

Further examples

• Cuando tenía quince años, me atropelló un coche = "When I was fifteen years old, a car ran over me"

The imperfect is used for "was" in Spanish because it forms the background to the specific event expressed by "ran over", which is in the preterite.

• Mientras cruzaba/estaba cruzando la calle, me atropelló un coche = "While I crossed/was crossing the road, a car ran over me"

In both languages, the continuous form for action in progress is optional, but Spanish requires the verb in either case to be in the imperfect, because it is the background to the specific event expressed by "ran over", in the preterite.

• Siempre tenía cuidado cuando cruzaba la calle = "I was always/always used to be careful when I crossed/used to cross the road"

The imperfect is used for both verbs since they refer to habits in the past. Either verb could optionally use the expression "used to" in English.

• Me bañaba = "I took baths"

The preterite is used if this refers to a single action or event—that is, the person took a bath last night.

• Me bañé = "I took a bath"

The imperfect is used if this refers to any sort of habitual action—that is, the person took a bath every morning. Optionally, solía bañarme can specifically express "I used to take baths".

• Tuvo una hija = "She had a daughter"

The preterite is used if this refers to an event—here, a birth.

• Tenía una hija = "She had a/one daughter"

The imperfect is used if this refers to the number of children by a certain point, as in "She had one daughter when I met her ten years ago; she may have more now". A description.

Note that when describing the life of someone who is now dead, the distinction between the two tenses blurs. One might describe the person's life saying tenía una hija, but tuvo una hija is very common because the person's whole life is viewed as a whole, with a beginning and an end. The same goes for vivía/vivió en... "he lived in...".

Perhaps the verb that English speakers find most difficult to translate properly is "to be" in the past tense ("was"). Apart from the choice between the verbs ser and estar (see below), it is often very hard for English speakers to distinguish between contextual and narrative uses.

• Alguien cogió mis CD. ¿Quién fue? = "Someone took my CDs. Who was it?"

Here the preterite is used because it is an event. A good clue is the tense in which cogió is.

• Había una persona que miraba los CD. ¿Quién era? = "There was a person who was looking at the CDs. Who was it?"

Here the imperfect is used because it is a description (the start and end of the action is not presented; it is something that was in progress at a certain time). Again, a good clue is the tense of the other verbs.

Frame of reference includes the present: perfect

If it is implicitly or explicitly communicated that the frame of reference for the event includes the present and the event or events may therefore continue occurring, then both languages strongly prefer the perfect.

With references including "this" including the present

• Este año me he ido de vacaciones dos veces = "This year I have gone on vacation twice"
• Esta semana ha sido muy interesante = "This week has been very interesting"

With other references to recent periods including the present

• No he hecho mucho hoy = "I have not done much today"
• No ha pasado nada hasta la fecha = "Nothing has happened to date"
• Hasta ahora no se me ha ocurrido = "Until now it has not occurred to me"

With reference to someone's life experience (his/her life not being over)

• ¿Alguna vez has estado en África? = "Have you ever been in Africa?"
• Mi vida no ha sido muy interesante = "My life has not been very interesting"
• Jamás he robado nada = "Never have I stolen anything"

Frame of reference superficially includes the present: perfect

Sometimes expressions like "today", "this year", and "this week" are used to express the idea these periods are over. This requires the simple past in English. For example, in December one might speak of the year in the simple past because we are assuming that all of that year's important events have occurred and one can talk as though it were over. Other expressions—such as "this weekend", if today is Monday—refer to a period which is definitely over; the word "this" just distinguishes it from other weekends. There is a tendency in Spanish to use the perfect even for this type of time reference, even though the preterite is possible and seems more logical.

• Este fin de semana hemos ido al zoo = "This weekend we went to the zoo"
• Hoy he tenido una jornada muy aburrida = "Today I had a very boring day at work"

Consequences continue into the present: perfect

As in English, the perfect is used when the consequences of an event are referred to.

• Alguien ha roto esta ventana = "Someone has broken this window" (the window is currently in a broken state)
• Nadie me ha dicho qué pasó aquel día = "Nobody has told me what happened that day" (therefore, I still do not know)

These same sentences in the preterite would purely refer to the past actions, without any implication that they have repercussions now.

In English, this type of perfect is not possible if a precise time frame is added or even implied. One cannot say "I have been born in 1978," because the date requires "I was born," despite the fact there is arguably a present consequence in the fact that the person is still alive. Spanish sporadically uses the perfect in these cases.

• He nacido en 1978 (usually Nací en 1978) = "I was born in 1978"
• Me he criado en Madrid (usually Me crié en Madrid) = "I grew up in Madrid"

The event itself continues into the present: perfect or present

If the event itself has been happening recently and is also happening right now or expected to continue happening soon, then the preterite is impossible in both languages. English requires the perfect, or better yet the perfect continuous. Spanish requires the perfect, or better yet the present simple:

• Últimamente ha llovido mucho / Últimamente llueve mucho = "It has rained / It has been raining a lot recently"

This is the only use of the perfect that is common in colloquial speech across Latin America.

Dialectal variation

In the Canary Islands and across Latin America, there is a colloquial tendency to replace most uses of the perfect with the preterite. This use varies according to region, register, and education.

• ¿Y vos alguna vez estuviste allá? = ¿Y tú alguna vez has estado allí? = "And have you ever been there?"

The one use of the perfect that does seem to be normal in Latin America is the perfect for actions that continue into the present (not just the time frame, but the action itself). Therefore, "I have read a lot in my life" and "I read a lot this morning" would both be expressed with leí instead of he leído, but "I have been reading" is expressed by he leído.

A less standard use of the perfect is found in Ecuador and Colombia. It is used with present or occasionally even future meaning. For example, Shakira Mebarak in her song "Ciega, Sordomuda" sings,

• Bruta, ciega, sordomuda, / torpe, traste, testaruda; / es todo lo que he sido = "Clumsy, blind, dumb, / blundering, useless, pig-headed; / that is all that I had been"

Haber: expressing existence

Haber can be used as an impersonal verb expressing existence ("there is/are"). When used impersonally, haber has a special present-tense form: hay instead of ha. The y is presumed to be a fossilized form of the mediaeval Castilian clitic pronoun y or i, once meaning "there", but now semantically empty, historically cognate with French y, Catalan hi and Italian vi from Latin ibi.

Unlike in English, in standard Spanish the thing that "is there" is not the subject of the sentence, and therefore there is no agreement between it and the verb (there is often agreement though in dialectal Spanish). This echoes constructions seen in languages such as French (il y a = "it there has"), Catalan (hi ha = "[it] there has"), and even Chinese (有 yǒu = "[it] has"):

• Hay un gato en el jardín. = "There is a cat in the garden."
• En el baúl hay fotografías viejas. = "In the trunk there are some old photos."

To form perfect constructions, the past participle habido is used:

• Ha habido mucha confusión de esto. = "There's been a lot of confusion about this."
• Ha habido pocos hasta ahora. = "There have been few so far."

It is possible, in certain types of emphasis, to put the verb after the object:

• ¿Revistas hay? = "Are there any magazines?"

There is a tendency to make haber agree with what follows, as though it were the subject, particularly in tenses other than the present indicative. There is heavier stigma on inventing plural forms for hay, but hain, han, and suchlike are sometimes encountered in non-standard speech. The form habemos is common (meaning "there are, including me"); it very rarely replaces hemos to form the present perfect tense in modern language,^[10] and in certain contexts it is even acceptable in formal or literary language:

• Había un hombre en la casa. = "There was a man in the house."
• Había unos hombres en la casa. = "There were some men in the house." (standard)
• Habían unos hombres en la casa. = "There were some men in the house." (non-standard)
• En esta casa habemos cinco personas. = "In this house there are five of us." (non-standard)^[11]
• Habría habido muchos más si supiera. = "There would have been a lot more if I knew." (standard)
• Nos las habemos con un gran jugador. = "We are confronting a great player." (standard)

As an existential verb, haber is never used other than in the third person. To express the existence of a first or second person, the verb estar ("to be [located/present]") or existir ("to exist") is used, and there is subject–verb agreement.

Haber: impersonal obligation

The phrase haber que (in the third person singular and followed by a subordinated construction with the verb in the infinitive) carries the meaning of necessity or obligation without specifying an agent. It is translatable as "it is necessary", but a paraphrase is generally preferable in translation. Note that the present-tense form is hay.

• Hay que abrir esa puerta. = "That door needs opening", "We have to open that door".
• Habrá que abrir esa puerta. = "That door will need opening", "We are going to have to open that door".
• Aunque haya que abrir esa puerta. = "Even if that door needs to be opened".

This construction is comparable to French il faut and Catalan cal. Hay que always goes with the infinitive.

Haber: personal obligation

A separate construction is haber de + infinitive. It is not impersonal. It tends to express a certain nuance of obligation and a certain nuance of future tense, much like the expression "to be to". It is also often used similarly to tener que and deber ("must", "ought to"). Note that the third personal singular of the present tense is ha.

• Mañana he de dar una charla ante la Universidad = "Tomorrow I am to give a speech before the University".
• Ha de comer más verduras = "She/he ought to eat more vegetables".

Haber: forming the perfect

Haber is also used as an auxiliary to form the perfect, as shown elsewhere. Spanish uses only haber for this, unlike French and Italian, which use the corresponding cognates of haber for most verbs, but cognates of ser ("to be") for certain others.

• Ella se ha ido al mercado = "She has gone to the market"
• Ellas se han ido de paseo = "They have gone on a walk"
• ¿Habéis fregado los platos? = "Have you (all) done the washing-up?"

Tener

Tener is a verb with the basic meaning of "to have", in its essential sense of "to possess", "to hold", "to own". As in English, it can also express obligation (tener que + infinitive). It also appears in a number of phrases that show emotion or physical states, expressed by nouns, which in English tend to be expressed by "to be" and an adjective.

• Mi hijo tiene una casa nueva = "My son has a new house"
• Tenemos que hablar = "We have to talk"
• Tengo hambre = "I am hungry" (lit. "I have hunger")

There are numerous phrases like tener hambre that are not literally translated in English, such as:^[12]

• tener hambre = "to be hungry"; "to have hunger"
• tener sed = "to be thirsty"; "to have thirst"
• tener cuidado = "to be careful"; "to have caution"
• tener __ años = "to be __ years old"; "to have __ years"
• tener celos = "to be jealous"; "to have jealousy"
• tener éxito = "to be successful"; "to have success"
• tener vergüenza = "to be ashamed"; "to have shame"

Note: Estar hambriento is a literal translation of "To be hungry", but it is rarely used in Spanish nowadays.