What is the acronym to help you remember when to use the preterite vs the imperfect?
The acronym SAFE will help you remember the types of situations in the past that require you to use the preterite tense.
What is the acronym to help you remember the different uses of the imperfect tense?
The acronym WATERS will help you remember that the imperfect is generally used to express ongoing situations that sort of “flow on” and have no specific place in time. Each word that represents a letter in WATERS indicates a situation when an imperfect verb will be used.
What is the acronym for preterite?
The preterite or preterit (/ˈprɛtərɪt/; abbreviated PRET or PRT) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple past tense.
What is the acronym for the imperfect tense?
The imperfect (abbreviated IMPERF) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state).
How do you memorize the imperfect tense in Spanish?
To form the imperfect tense of -ar verbs, take off the -ar ending and add the endings: -aba, -abas, -aba, -ábamos, -abais, -aban. To form the imperfect tense of -er and -ir verbs, take off the -er and -ir endings and add the endings: -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían. ser, ir and ver are irregular in the imperfect.
Which endings are used to form regular verbs in the preterite tense in Spanish?
2 Forming the preterite of regular verbs To form the preterite of any regular -ar verb, you take off the -ar ending to form the stem, and add the endings: -é, -aste, -ó, -amos, -asteis, -aron.
How do you learn preterite and imperfect in Spanish?
To conjugate regular -ar verbs in the preterite, simply drop the ending (-ar) and add one of the following:
- é aste. ó amos. asteis. aron.
- aba. abas. aba. ábamos. abais. aban.
- Preterite: regular -ar verbs. -é -aste. -ó -amos. -asteis. -aron.
- Imperfect: regular -ar verbs. -aba. -abas. -aba. -ábamos. -abais. -aban.
How do you remember past tense in Spanish?
So the endings follow a pattern: -é, -aste, -ó, -amos, -aron. You memorize this pattern and you can conjugate any regular AR verb in the preterite tense….
- Bebí (I drank)
- Bebiste (you drank)
- Bebió (he, she, it drank)
- Bebimos (we drank)
- Bebieron (they drank)