Lesson 21: Using the present tense to describe past events
We've already seen how we can use the present tense to talk about the future. We can also use it to talk about the past.
There are three ways to talk about the past in English.
- "I ate"
- "I was eating"
- "I have eaten"
This last one, if you think about it, is the present tense - "I have ....".
The two 'haves' of Spanish - Tener and Haber
We already covered 'Tener' as a way to say "I have" but this only applies to things (be they real or imagined) of when we use 'Tengo que' to say "I have to ...".
The "to have" for things you have done is 'haber'.
This verb has very irregular forms for I/you/he/she/we/they but there is a simple system you can follow to remember them in both the spoken and written form.
In 'haber' there are two vowel sounds - 'a' and 'e'. 'he' - pronounced as 'e' because Spanish h's are always silent - means "I have [done something / had something / etc.]".
 Spanish |  English |
|---|---|
| Haber | To have [done/had] |
| He | I have [done/had] |
As long as we remember this initial connection - the 'e' sound belongs to the I form we can built the rest of the forms which we'll do in a moment.
We can also remember that we need to put the 'h' on to get 'he' in the written form by noting that 'haber' starts with an 'h'.
At first glance this all looks kind of strange but we have come across it before ...
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Saber | To know |
| Sé | I know |
On a positive note 'haber' and 'saber' are the only two verbs that have I forms like this (by shortening) so once you've learnt them there won't be any more like this coming up.
We have
Now lets build the next mental bridge. We can think about "We" as the plural of "I" to remember that the 'we form' also contains the 'e' sound and then do what we normally do with 'we forms' - add 'mos' to give us 'hemos'
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Hemos | We have [done/had] |
So now we have 'he' ("I have") and 'hemos' ("we have") but the important thing is not to try and memorize these - instead we want to remember how to build them from 'haber. This way we'll always get it write both in speaking and writing.
This "Thinking Method" will always be slower at first but more concrete in the longer term.
He/she/it/you (formal) have
Now we move to the other vowel sound - 'a' - and noting that 'haber' starts with 'h' we get 'ha. Remember the 'h' is silent.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Ha | he/she/it/you (informal) have [done/had] |
... and going on what we have learned so far about how the forms of Spanish verbs are put together we can work out the other forms:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Han | they/you guys have [done/had] |
| Has | you (informal) have [done/had] |
Verbs in the past tense
Verbs (to eat, to go, etc) change in this type of past tense but the way they change follows two main rules:
- for 'ar' verbs (e.g. 'hablar') we take off the 'ar' and add on 'ado' - 'hablado' ("spoken").
- for 'er' and 'ir' verbs we take off the 'er' or 'ir' and add on 'ido'
This will be true for all the forms of the verb - I/you/he/she/it/they/we. We'll start with 'a' verbs.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Hablado | spoken |
Now we can start building full sentences that refer to the past.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| He hablado | I have spoken |
| No he hablado | I haven't spoken |
| Hemos hablado | We have spoken |
| Ha hablado | He has spoken |
| Han hablado | They have spoken |
| Has hablado | You (informal) have spoken |
This way of talking about the past is much more popular in Spanish than in English. In English we tend to say "I spoke" more than "I have spoken". Again the "I have spoken" is seen as the more elegant way to talk or to emphasize the point while in Spanish it is the more everyday way of expressing something in the past.
A practice of the thinking method from the top
Let's take a sentence like "We have anticipated it". We haven't covered the verb "to anticipate" but using our Thinking Method we can find how to make this sentence even though we have never come across it before.
- Anticipate has a 'tion' version in English - "Anticipation"
- We take off the 'tion' and add 'ar' to get the to form in Spanish - 'Anticipar' ("to anticipate").
- We take off the 'ar' and add 'ado' to get the past form for 'have' - 'Anticipado' ("anticipated").
- Because we have changed the verb the 'lo' ("it") goes before the changed verb.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Lo hemos anticipado | We have anticipated it |
Por - for (when talking about time)
In Spanish there are a few ways to say 'for' but when we are talking about a period of time we use 'por'.
So thinking about the sentence "We have anticipated it for a long time".
You have probably heard 'por favor' in Spanish which is usually translated as "Please" but more literally it is "for a favor".
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Lo hemos anticipado por mucho tiempo | We have anticipated it for a long time |
Did you .....
Another important aspect of the Thinking Method is to think your way around things you don't know.
We haven't covered how to say "Did you ... " but we can use "Have you ..." instead to make ourselves understood.
So if we need to translate this sentence "Did you celebrate?" we're looking at a sentence that contains nothing we know! Still we can think it out.
- Celebrate has a 'tion' version in English - "Celebration"
- We take off the 'tion' and add 'ar' to get the to form in Spanish - 'Celebrar' ("to celebrade").
- We take off the 'ar' and add 'ado' to get the past form for 'have' - 'Celebrado' ("celebrated").
- We change the "Did you" to "Have you" - 'has' (informal you).
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| ¿Has celebrado? | Have you celebrated? |
| ¿No has celebrado? | Haven't you celebrated? |
| ¿Por qué no has celebrado? | Why haven't you celebrated? |
| ¿Dónde has celebrado? | Where have you celebrated? |
| ¿Dónde lo has celebrado? | Where have you celebrated it? |
Remember has always those first two - 'Has celebrado' and 'No has celebrado' - can also be statements - "You have celebrated" and "You haven't celebrated" just by changing the way you say them to be more statement like than question like.
Practice with 'tomar' - to take / to drink
We covered tomar in a previous lesson but its good practice to go back to verbs we have already come across and practice using them with any new techniques.
So again, before your eyes drift down think mentally about how to change tomar for the past tense 'have form' and then how you could build all its various forms - I/we/she/he/it/you/they.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| He tomado | I have taken |
| Hemos tomado | We have taken |
| ¿Lo ha tomado? | Has she taken it? |