Verbal Tenses Equivalents English - Spanish

                                       Verbal Tenses:

 Use and equivalences

Spanish - English

   

"How do you say: ..." This is one of the most common questions when learning a new language and many times, this becomes a difficult barrier to break through. There are methods and they all point to somewhat complex grammatical explanations. This article is the result of a relentless quest to help  students connect with their new language, with their goal of speaking fluent Spanish.

You can see the Name of the verb tense in Spanish, then the description of its use in Spanish, then its most common equivalent according to the understanding of the message and not its literal translation, and in the "Message" columns the translation of the sentence.

I sincerely hope that it will help you to better understand and express yourselves more easily in Spanish.

Español	Uso	Mensaje	English	Message
Presente & Present Progressive	To describe actions that happen regularly or that are true in general. Future actions.	Trabajo de domingo a viernes.   María está cantando. Está bien, yo lo compro la semana que viene.	Present Simple	I work from Sunday to Friday. María is singing. It’s ok, I’ll buy it next week.
Pretérito indefinido	To describe actions that happened in the past and are completed.	Ayer fui al cine.	Simple Past	Yesterday, I went to the cinema
Pretérito imperfecto	To describe actions that happened regularly in the past, actions that were in progress in the past, or descriptions of the past.	De pequeño, jugaba al fútbol todos los días. Me encantaba ir a la playa cuando vivía en Florida.	Simple Past, Past Continuous, Used to	When I was little, I used to play soccer everyday. I loved going to the beach when I lived in Florida
Futuro simple	To describe actions that will happen in the future (Mainly used in written Spanish)	Mañana iré al parque.	Simple Future	I will go to the park tomorrow.
Futuro de Ir a	To describe actions that will happen in the future(Most common in spoken Spanish)	Mañana voy a ir al parque.	Simple Future	I am going to the park tomorrow.
Futuro simple para adivinar el presente	To express a guess about the present.	¿Dónde estará José en este momento?	Simple Present	Where is José right now? Where can Jose be at this moment?
Condicional	To hypothetical actions, wishes, or suggestions.	Mónica dijo que trabajaría hasta tarde. ¿Podrías ayudarme, por favor? Si tuviera dinero, viajaría por el mundo.	Conditional	Monica said she would work “until” late. Would you help me, please? If I had money, I would travel the world.
Pretérito perfecto compuesto	To describe actions that have happened in the past and have consequences in the present.	Ya he comido.	Present Perfect	I have already eaten
Pluscuamperfecto	To describe actions that happened before another action in the past.	Cuando llegué, ya habían comido.	Past Perfect	When I arrived, they had already  eaten.
Futuro perfecto compuesto	To describe actions that will happen in the future before another action.	Para el año que viene, ya habré terminado mis estudios.	Future Perfect	By next year, I will have already completed my degree .
Presente del subjuntivo	To express wishes, requests, doubts, assumptions, conditions, etc.	Quiero que vengas a mi casa.	Subjunctive	I want you to come to my house.
Pretérito imperfecto del subjuntivo	To express hypothetical actions, wishes, requests, doubts, assumptions, conditions, etc. in the past.	Ojalá yo fuera rico.	Past Subjunctive	I wish I was rich.
Presente perfecto del subjuntivo	To express wishes, requests, doubts, assumptions, conditions, etc. about actions that have happened in the past.	Espero que hayas comido.	Present Perfect Subjunctive	I hope you have eaten.
Pluscuamperfecto del subjuntivo	To express hypothetical actions, wishes, requests, doubts, assumptions, conditions, etc. about actions that had happened in the past.	Ojalá hubieras venido. Si me hubieras llamado, te habría esperado. Yo hubiera hecho lo mismo en tu situación.	Past Perfect, Would have.	I wish you had come. If you had called, I would have waited for you. I would have done the same in your position.

As you can see, the column, "message", shows the message to be expressed and the verb tense or structure in which it is said in English. This information can be useful to learn how to use the Spanish verb tenses in a correct and natural way.

The information regarding the verbal tense is about the Spanish verbal tense.

Most of the above examples are very common phrases and can be used with other verbs and situations by adapting the phrase with logical verbs