Spanish 3 Grammatical ConceptsNicholas Arce

Table of Contents1- Title

2- Table of Contents

3- Preterite Tense

4- Preterite Triggers

5- Car, Gar, Zar

6- Spock

7- Snake, Snakey

8- Cucuracha

9- Imperfect Tense

10- Imperfect Triggers

11- Irregulars

12-Preterite vs. Imperfect

13- Ser vs. Estar

14- Verbs like Gustar

15- Comparatives and Superlatives

16- Future Tense

17- Future Triggers

18- Future Irregulars

19- Transition Words

20- Por

21- Para

Preterite

This verb form is used for completed actions in the past. Such as you ate yesterday, comiste ayer, or I swam at 8, Nadé a las ocho. They have a definitive start and end.

Regular Verb Forms

-Ar

-Er/Ir

é amos

aste -

ó aron

í imos

iste -

ió ieron

Triggers Every verb tense has words which will help you identify which tense to use. For the preterite tense... Ante ayer

El dia anterior

El jueves pasado

El otro dia

UN! vez

All these will help you identify the perterite tense

Car, Gar, Zar Most (if not all) verb forms have

irregulars. The preterite has quite a few...the first being the car, gar, and zar verbs.

For these verbs, take off the ending of the infintive, and for the YO form with verbs ending in car, gar, or zar, use the endings qué, gué, and cé respectively.

buscar---busqué

llegar---llegué

empezar---empecé

Spock!Irregular conjugations for each

grouping. No accents!

Hacer

DarIr

SerVer Dar/Ver

-i,-imos,-iste,-io,-ieron

Hacer

hice, hicimos, hiciste, hizo, hicieron

Ir/Ser

fui, fuimos, fuiste, fue, fueron

Snake....Snakey Only the bottom of the chart....(3rd person) has an irregular conjugation where the vowel changes to a y.

Leer

leyó

leyeron

Oir

oyó

oyeron

Cucurachas!

These verbs all have the same endings: e, imos, iste, o, ieron.

Anduve, anduvimos, anduviste, anduvo, anduvieron

andar anduv-

estar estuv-

tener tuv-

caber cup-

haber hub-

poder pud-

poner pus-

saber sup-

hacer hic-

querer quis-

venir vin-

*decir dij-

*producir produj-

*traer traj-

***** for those, the 3rd person plural drops the 'I' in the conjugation. For example. Trajeron instead of trajieron....

Imperfect

Used to describe past actions that don't have a specific beginning or ending. They have an imperfect time. They describe habitual past actions, or uncompleted actions. Also vague refrences would use the imperfect.... cuando ERA niño...

The endings are....

-Ar

-Er/Ir

aba abámos

abas -

aba aban

ía íamos

ías -

ía ían

Triggers

Denotes the imperfect tense!!!!

A veces

A menudo

De vez en cuando

Mientras

Muchas veces

Los lunes

Cada dia

Frequentemente

siempre

Imperfect Irregulars

Ir

iba

ibas

iba

íbamos

iban

Ser

era

eras

era

éramos

eran

Ver

veía

veías

veía

veíamos

veían

Only 3, enough said?

Preterite vs. ImperfectWe have two ways we could

possibly express past actions, with the preterite and imperfect tenses. So, which one should we use? Well, the preterite, as I said before, is like a snapshot, a definite time. Imperfect is like a movie, it keeps moving.

If that isn't confusing enough, they can both be used in the same sentence. But luckily, the imperfect shows the background information such as time, weather, and location, while the preterite shows the specific events.

Nadaste a las dies (Pret.)

Nadaba de vez en cuando (imp.)

Cuando dormía, mi perro comióuna hamburguesa con queso.

Ser vs. Estar

Ser

D- descriptions

O- occupations

C- characteristic

T- time

O- origin

R- relationships

P- possesion

E- events

D- dates

Estar

H- health

E- emotions

L- location

P- physical characteristics

ING- for verbs in English ending in -ing you need estar + verb + ando/iendo

Verbs like Gustar

Some verbs work like gustar

Personal pronoun + gusta/an + noun

me encantan los zapatos

me fascina comer

no me importa

aburrir, faltar, importar, interesar, molestar, quedar, caer, doler, disgustar, preocupar, sorprender, apetecer

Comparatives and Superlatives

Comparatives

Mas ____ que ____

Menos ____ que ____

Nuestra casa es mas grande que su casa

Superlatives

el mas ___ de ____

el menos ___ de ____

Nuestra casa es el mas grande de todos en el mundo

*Irregular adjectives

Bueno- mejor

Malo- peor

Viejo- mayor

Joven- menor

*Numbers!

Mas de or menos de

*OTRO!

Tan___ como

as ___ as

Tanto ___como

as much/many as

Future Tense

All verbs end the same way! Infintive + ending

Hablaré miercoles.

é emos

ás -

á án

Triggers

When you see these, you know the event will be happening sometime in the future!

Mañana

El lunes

Despues de mañana

El proximo dia

Irregulars!

Same endings, but the stem changes!

Caber cabr

Poner pondr

Decir dir

Haber habr

Salir saldr

Hacer har

Poder podr

Tener tendr

Querer querr

Valer valdr

Sabe sabr

Venir vendr

Transition WordsThese words will

spice up your sentences and provide you with ways of saying more things.

• Aunque- even though

• Mientras- while

• A pasar de- in spite of

• Por lo tanto- therefore

• Sin embargo/no obstante- nevertheless

Por

For By means of

Passing through PORtal

General, not specific PORtugal

How long PORever

The cause of something PORpuse

An exhange imPORt/exPORt

Doing something in place of someone

I am POR, pay for me

By means of moving transPORtation

Para

For In order to

For whom something is done

Suprise PARAtay

Destination PARAguay

The purpose for whom something is done

PARAsites

Opinions PARAdon me, but...

Contrast and compare comPARAson

deadline PARAmedic