Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
SPEAKERS
One of the biggest challenges for a Spanish speaker is learning how to pronounce English words
correctly. It is true that it is much easier for an English speaker to learn how to pronounce
Spanish words than it is for a Spanish speaker to learn how to pronounce English words. The best
way to practice your pronunciation is by imitating or copying an English speaker, so I encourage
you to practice your English pronunciation in this course by listening carefully to how I pronounce
these words and then repeat after me. Say what I said exactly how I said it just repeat
after me!
Nonetheless, the focus of this course is on learning the 14 English verb tenses. You will be happy
to know that English verb tenses are fairly simple to learn by comparison to Spanish verb tenses,
so I encourage you to focus on learning all the verb tenses in this course in order to improve
your English rapidly. Just look at how simple the English verbs are by looking at the charts
below:
Present Tense:
I
You
He/She/It
We
You (plural)
They
I speak
You speak
She speaks
We speak
You speak
Yo
T
l/Ella/Ud.
Nosotros
Vosotros
Ellos/Ellas/U
ds.
hablo
hablas
Ella habla
hablamos
hablis
com
comiste
Ella comi
comimos
comisteis
They ate
Yo
T
l/Ella/Ud.
Nosotros
Vosotros
Ellos/Ellas/U
ds.
I will live
You will live
She will live
We will live
You will live
They will live
Yo
T
l/Ella/Ud.
Nosotros
Vosotros
Ellos/Ellas/U
vivir
vivirs
Ella vivir
viviremos
viviris
Ellos vivirn
They speak
Ellos hablan
Past Tense:
I
You
He/She/It
We
You (plural)
They
I ate
You ate
She ate
We ate
You ate
Ellos comieron
Future Tense:
I
You
He/She/It
We
You (plural)
They
ds.
Lets move on to learning the first English tense in this course the Present Tense.
PRESENT TENSE
We use the Present Tense when talking about something that is factual, repeated, or usual. Es un
hecho. Es un hbito. Es tu vida normal.
Examples:
I do homework every day.
I have the book, notebook and
dictionary.
We eat spicy food.
We hear the cat.
The boys don't know where the
dictionary is.
We live around the corner.
Do you know where John is?
What city do you live in?
Es muy facil, no es cierto? This tense is very easy to learn because it is normally the first tense
that people learn when learning any language, plus the Present Tense in English is nearly
identical to el tiempo Presente in Spanish.
In this course we are not focusing on verb conjugations because you can find them
everywhere on the internet, but instead we are focusing on the 14 English verb tenses. But
before we go on to the next tense, we will review the verb to be in English because you will
need it when forming the next tense in this course.
Verb To Be in English
The infinitive form (el infinitivo) in English always includes the word to with the verb. So, in
Spanish the infinitive vivir is expressed in English as to live comer in Spanish is to eat in
English caminar in Spanish is to walk in English.
One thing that makes English easy to learn is that the Spanish verbs ser and estar are both
covered by the one English verb to be. So in Spanish when you say I am Mario you use the
verb ser to say Soy Mario but if you say I am here you use the verb estar to say Estoy
aqu. I am tall in English is Soy alto in Spanish but I am happy in English is Estoy feliz
in Spanish.
Spanish language learners such as myself try to remember which verb to use by thinking of ser
as something permanent and estar as something temporary, but it is more complicated than
that. The good news for you is that you only have to learn the one verb to be in English. Here
are ser and estar and the verb to be:
I
I am
Yo
soy
Yo
estoy
You
(singular)
He/She/It
We
You (plural)
They
You are
She is
T
l/Ella/Ud.
We are
You are
They
are
Nosotros
Vosotros
Ellos/Ellas/U
ds.
eres
es
somos
sois
son
T
l/Ella/Ud.
Nosotros
Vosotros
Ellos/Ellas/U
ds.
ests
est
estamo
s
estis
estn
Now that we have reviewed the English verb to be, lets continue by moving on to the Present
Progressive Tense.
Or, you can talk about something that you are doing today, this month, this year, etc. Which
means that you can talk about something you might not be doing at this very moment but
something that you are in the process of doing over a longer period of time.
Examples:
I am working at the store this month.
They are learning a lot about sports at
school.
I am studying to be a lawyer.
Finally, you can use the Present Progressive Tense in English to talk about something that will
happen in the future. Atencin! In Spanish you do this with el tiempo Presente and not el
Presente Progresivo.
Examples:
I am playing soccer with friends after
work.
My mother is cooking dinner tonight.
Tomorrow we are meeting to have
coffee.
I am calling you this afternoon.
In Spanish you combine the helping verb haber (to have done something) with the participio to
form this tense. Por ejemplo Has hecho tu trabajo Ella ha escrito una carta Hemos dicho
la verdad.
Atencin! In Spanish you dont use the verb tener (to have, to possess) as the helping verb in
this tense, and likewise in English you dont use the verb to have (to possess) as the helping
verb in this tense. So, when you say She has a letter (Ella tiene una carta) it means that she
has a letter in her possession, but when you say She has written a letter (Ella ha escrito una
carta) it means that she wrote a letter it means that she has written a letter.
Examples:
I
You
He/She/It
We
You (plural)
They
Yo
l/Ella/Ud.
Nosotros
Vosotros
Ellos/Ellas/U
ds.
The English past participles are a little complicated, but fortunately in this course you receive a
spreadsheet that lists many of the more common and difficult English past participles
alongside the infinitives and gerunds of each verb.
Weve already covered the Present Progressive Tense therefore, it is time to cover the Past
Progressive Tense.
PAST PROGRESSIVE TENSE
The Past Progressive Tense (sometimes called the Past Continuous Tense) is used to describe
something that was happening in the past.
Examples:
Roberto was sleeping in my office.
Mara was singing last night.
You were living in Granada.
Also, you can use this tense to describe something that was happening in the past that was
interrupted by something else. Se puede usar para describir algo que estaba ocurriendo en el
pasado que fue interrumpido por otra accin.
Examples:
I was eating when Jorge arrived.
We were cooking when the phone
rang.
Finally, you can use this tense to describe two things that were happening at the same time in
the past.
Examples:
I was singing while he was playing the guitar.
My sisters were dancing and my brothers
were sleeping.
Yo
T
l/Ella/Ud.
Nosotros
You
(plural)
They
Vosotros
Ellos/Ellas/
Uds.
Notice that you use the same helping verb had in every case both singular and plural I had
eaten pizza, you had eaten pizza, she had eaten pizza, we had eaten pizza, you (plural) had
eaten pizza, and they had eaten pizza.
Notice also that the Past Perfect Tense is used to describe something that happened in the past
before something else happened in the past pasado, pasado both events happened in the
past, one before the other.
Or, you can think of the Past Perfect Tense as describing something that happened in the past
before a specific time in the past.
Examples:
She had not seen the movie before
Sunday.
My friends had lived in Colombia before
1980.
Do you remember that I had said earlier that the Imperfect Tense does not exist in English?
Additionally, the 4 tenses of the Subjunctive Mood do not exist in English.
However, I want you to know that there are 4 verb tenses in English that do not exist in Spanish,
and we will now review the two most common of those tenses and briefly look at the two least
common the two most common are the Present Perfect Progressive Tense, and the Past Perfect
Progressive Tense.
He/She/It
We
You
(plural)
They
Thats all there is to it! The word been (pronounced like the name Ben) is the past participle
form of the verb to be.
So, in the Present Perfect Tense you can say: I have been happy, she has been funny today,
and we have been dedicated to our English. But, in the Present Perfect Progressive Tense
you add a gerund to say: I have been reading, she has been working, and we have been studying
our English.
Here is the formula for the Present Perfect Progressive Tense: have/has + been + gerund
Honestly, the two other English tenses not found in Spanish are so rarely used that I will not
explain them in detail. They are the Future Perfect Progressive Tense and the Conditional Perfect
Progressive Tense, and here are a few examples:
FUTURE PERFECT PROGRESSIVE
TENSE
CONDITIONAL PERFECT
PROGRESSIVE TENSE
Lets move on to more common tenses, and the Simple Past Tense is one of the most commonly
used tenses.
SIMPLE PAST TENSE
The Simple Past Tense is another English verb tense that is just like the equivalent tense in
Spanish, el Pretrito Indefinido. You use this tense to describe specific past actions that:
The most difficult aspect of learning the Simple Past Tense is learning how the English verbs
change from the Present Tense to the Simple Past Tense. The spreadsheet that you receive with
this course shows many of the most common verbs, but here are a few examples of significant
changes:
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
Present
Tense
do
think
go
bring
buy
catch
eat
find
leave
light
seek
sleep
speak
take
understand
Pretrito
hice
pens
fui
traje
compr
cog
com
encontr
dej / me fui
encend
busqu
dorm
habl
tom
entend
Nonetheless, the nice thing about English is that for virtually all of the verbs there is no change
between the singular and plural, and no change based on the person (i.e. I, you, she, we, they).
For example: I bought the car, you bought the car, she bought the car, we bought the car, you
my friends bought the car, and they bought the car. We all bought the car!
Fixed Point in Time
Specific Number of
Times/Items
Specific Time Period
In this course we have already covered all of the past and present tenses in English, a total of 10
tenses. There remains 4 English verb tenses to learn: Future Tense, Future Perfect Tense,
Conditional Tense, and the Conditional Perfect tense.
Vamos!
FUTURE TENSE
I already showed you how you can use the Present Progressive Tense to talk about future events.
For example: I am calling you this afternoon. (Te llamo esta tarde).
You also use the gerund of the verb to go in English much like ir + a + el infinitivo in Spanish to
express future action.
Examples:
I am going to ride my motorcycle tomorrow.
Do you know where you are going to play this
afternoon?
Martin is going to do his homework.
Sheri and I are going to eat dinner at 9:00 at
night.
You my brothers and sisters are going to live in
peace.
The workers are going to travel to Nicaragua.
On occasion you will hear someone say shall instead of will, but the word shall is rarely used
anymore especially here in the United States where I live. For example: I shall teach you the
best English in the world!
Another important thing to remember is that when you say something in the negative, the
contraction wont is normally used instead of will not.
There won't be a game at 8:00
PM.
They won't send an invitation
soon.
Ahora I would like to teach you the conditional tenses. Would you like to learn them?
CONDITIONAL TENSE
It is easy to recognize and form the Conditional Tense just look for the word would (or
sometimes could).
El condicional es facil de formar y reconocer!
Here are some of the various uses of the Conditional Tense:
To express desire Expresar deseo: I would like to travel more. Me gustara viajar ms.
To express courtesy Expresar cortesa: Could you open the window? Podras abrir la
ventana?
To express uncertainty Expresar incertidumbre: I would buy the dress, but I dont have
any money. Yo comprara el vestido, pero no tengo dinero.
To express something hypothetical Expresar algo hipottico: She would scream if she
saw a fish. Ella gritara si ella viera un pez. I would go to the moon if I could. Yo viajara a la
luna si yo pudiera.
To express a future intention with a past tense verb Expresar el futuro junto con un verbo
de tiempo pasado: I said that we would do it tomorrow. Dije que lo haramos maana.
To give advice or your opinion Dar consejos o tu opinion: If I were you, I would go to
Peru. Si fuera t, ira a Per.
Affirmative You would have been rich if you had studied English. Habras sido rico si
hubieras estudiado ingls.
Negative They wouldnt have hired you if you did not speak English. Ellos no te habran
contratado si no hubieras hablado ingls
Question Would this course have cost more if the teacher were famous? Habra costado
ms este curso si el maestro hubiera sido famoso?
Lo hicimos!
Presente
Presente Progresivo
Pretrito Perfecto (Antepresente)
Pretrito Imperfecto Progresivo
Pretrito Pluscuamperfecto
(Antecopretrito)
Remember that this entire course is available to you in a document that you can download,
and there is also a spreadsheet available to you as a download that shows all the English
and Spanish verb tenses in a timeline. The spreadsheet has more than one worksheet, so make
sure that you find all the data.
Espero que no hay errores en mi espaol!
Feel free to send me an email with any questions or suggestions that you might have, my email
address is: flywithspanish@gmail.com
Also, please check out my website at www.fotopala.com to find FREE resources that will help you:
Teach English
Learn Spanish
I hope that you have enjoyed this course and Que te vaya bien!