Lesson 49: Past Tense (Line): Llamar, Tener, Ver, Ser and Ir

In this lesson we'll practice how to put this 'line in the past' Past Tense into practice and cover the three verbs which are irregular - ver, er and ir.

Llamar - to call

Lets start with a popular very 'llamar' ("to call") - its used both to refer to telephone calls, calling to people (say in the street) and "to knock on the door".

As we've already seen it is also used to tell people "How you call yourself"

Spanish	English
Me llamo ...	I call myself / my name is ...
¿Cómo te llamas?	How do you call yourself? / What is your name?
¿Cómo se llama?	How does she call herself? / What is her name?
¿Cómo se llamaba?	How did she call herself? / What was her name?
¿Cómo se llamaban?	How did they call herselves? / What were their names?

'Tener' in the past

When we want to say "I had something material for a period of time in the past" we use 'Tener'. Its an 'er' verb so we take of the 'er' amd add 'ía' as the key sound.

Spanish	English
Tenía una casa grande	I used to have a big house
Teníamos una casa grande	I used to have a big house
Tenía cuatro pero ahora no me queda	I used to four but now I don't have any left

'Tengo que' - "I have to"

This strange set up which we have seen in an earlier lesson transfers over into the past very easily

Spanish	English
Tengo que verte	I have to see you
Tenía que verte	I had to see you
Tenía que verte ayer	I had to see you yesterday
¿Tenías que hacerlo ayer?	Did you have to do it yesterday
¿No tenías que hacerlo ayer?	Didn't you have / weren't you supposed to do it yesterday

Irregular verb 1: Ver

There are only three irregular verbs in this type of past tense (the line in the past) and they are pretty easy to remember. The first is 'Ver' ("to see").

In the present tense we've seen this is irregular to. To say "I see" the rules for 'er' verbs mean we should be left with 'vo' but in reality we say 'veo'. For this verb we keep the 'e'.

Its exactly the same approach for this type of past tense. We should take off the 'er' and add 'ía' to get 'vía' but instead we keep the 'e' and get 'veía'. The endings of the various forms then follow the standard rules:

Spanish	English
Veía	I|he|she was seeing / I|he|she used to see
Veías	You (informal) were seeing / you used to see
Veían	They|you guys were seeing / They|you guys used to see
Veíamos	We were seeing / We used to see

Irregular verb 2: Ser

Again its another really short verb and it is very different. 'Era' - "I was" - doesn't look at all like 'Ser' but there is an easy way to remember it.

The past tense we are talking about at the moment is when we refer to a period of time in the past (not a single event) and the English word for a period of time is .... "Era"!!

Spanish	English
Era estudiante	I was a student / I used to be a student
¿Eras estudiante?	Were you a student?
Éramos estudiantes	We were students
Qué eran	What were they?

Note the accent on the 'E' in 'Éramos'. In this tense the accent is always at the start but the default for Spanish is for the accent to be on the penultimate syllable. In order to override this default we have to accent the first syllable when there are more than two syllables in the word.

Irregular verb 3: Ir

The verb 'Ir' - "to go" - is also very irregular but we can remember it as a mix of the 'ía' and 'aba' sounds associated with this tense which gives us 'iba' - "I was going". The endings are all regular:

Spanish	English
Iba	I was going / I used to go
Íbamos	We were going / We used to go
Iban	They were going/ They used to go
Ibas	You (informal) were going / You used to go
¿Por qué ibas?	Why were you (informal) going / Why did you used to go?
Iba a llamarte	I was going to call you
Iba a hacerlo	I was going to do it make it
Íbamos a hacerlo	We were going to do it / make it
Íbamos a hacerlos	We were going to do them / make them

Note that 'a' after 'Iba / Íbamos' because going is a motion verb - there is motion involved - and so we add the 'a' to stress this even though when Spanish is spoken quickly it will all but disappear!

Lesson 50: When to use 'Para' or 'Por' (Part 1)