So far, you can talk about what's happening now. But how do you talk about what happened yesterday, last week, or five years ago? In Spanish, you'll use the preterite tense. Think of it as your tool for talking about completed actions in the past. These are events with a clear beginning and a clear end.

Imagine telling a friend about your day. You woke up, you ate breakfast, you went to work. Each of these is a distinct, completed action. That's the preterite's job. To signal that you're using this tense, you'll often see specific time markers.

When you see these words, it's a strong clue that a preterite verb is coming. For example, Ayer, hablé con mi amigo. (Yesterday, I spoke with my friend.) The action of speaking is done and finished.

To form the preterite with regular verbs, you just need to learn a new set of endings. You'll drop the -ar, -er, or -ir from the infinitive and add the appropriate ending. Notice how the -er and -ir endings are identical in the preterite! This is a handy shortcut.

Let's see this in action with three common verbs: hablar (to speak), comer (to eat), and vivir (to live).

Ayer, hablé con María. (Yesterday, I spoke with Maria.) Anoche, comimos pizza. (Last night, we ate pizza.) El año pasado, vivieron en Madrid. (Last year, they lived in Madrid.)

One important detail: the nosotros form for -ar and -ir verbs is the same in the preterite as it is in the present tense. Context, like the word ayer, is what tells you which tense is being used.

Of course, some of the most common verbs in Spanish are irregular in the preterite. They don't follow the patterns above. The good news is that while their stems change, many of them share a special set of endings that are different from the regular ones.

Here are four essential irregular verbs: ir (to go), ser (to be), hacer (to do/make), and tener (to have).

Interestingly, ir and ser are identical in the preterite tense! Again, you'll rely on the context of the sentence to know which verb is being used.

Ayer, fui al mercado. (Yesterday, I went to the market.) La película fue muy buena. (The movie was very good.)

The verb hacer has a small spelling change in the third-person singular. The 'c' becomes a 'z' (hizo) to maintain the 's' sound. If it were spelled hico, it would be pronounced 'ee-ko' instead of 'ee-so'. [{] like this are common in Spanish to preserve pronunciation.

Now you can string these verbs together to narrate a sequence of events. The preterite is perfect for this, as it moves the story forward from one completed action to the next.

Each verb marks a specific, finished event in the story. You can see how learning just a few key verbs in the preterite unlocks a whole new level of communication, allowing you to share experiences and tell stories about the past.

Time to test your knowledge.

Practice is key. Try writing a few sentences about what you did yesterday using the preterite.