Simple past tense in Spanish: Formation, use and examples

The past simple in Spanish is a verb tense that is used to talk about actions or situations that occurred in the past and have already ended. It is the first past tense you learn in Spanish, since it is the easiest to conjugate and one of the most used in everyday speech. It tends to be used more in Latin America than in Spain, but in general all Spanish speakers use it regularly. The past simple is formed differently for regular and irregular verbs.

To form the simple past, you must take the verb stem and add the corresponding ending according to the subject personal pronoun. The endings are different for regular verbs in -ar, -er and -ir. With irregular verbs, it is a little different. Here you have to learn the conjugation of verbs by heart.

Below you will find some examples of regular verbs and some irregular verbs that you can use to learn how to conjugate the past simple in Spanish:

• Completed actions in the past: The past simple is used to talk about actions that took place at a specific time in the past and have already finished. For example: "Yesterday I studied for the exam" (the action of studying occurred at a past time and has already concluded).
• Sequence of events: In narratives and stories, the simple past is used to establish a sequence of past actions. For example, "I came home, cooked dinner, and then watched a movie."
• Habitual past actions: Although the imperfect past tense is most common to describe habitual actions in the past, in some contexts, the simple past can also be used to express repeated actions in the past. For example, "When I was a kid, I played soccer every day."
• Past actions in a definite time frame: When mentioning a specific time period in the past, the past simple is used to describe actions that occurred within that period. For example, "Last year I traveled to Europe."

Remember that the simple past and the imperfect past have different uses and nuances in Spanish, and it is essential to understand when to use each tense to correctly express past actions in different contexts.