Understanding how to use writing tenses is challenging. How do you mix past, present and future tense without making the reader giddy? What is the difference between ‘simple’ and ‘perfect’ tense? Read this simple guide for answers to these questions and more:

What are the main writing tenses?

In English, we have so-called ‘simple’ and ‘perfect’ tenses in the past, present and future. The simple tense merely conveys action in the time narrated. For example:

Past (simple) tense: Sarah ran to the store.
Present (simple) tense: Sarah runs to the store.
Future (simple) tense: Sarah will run to the store

Perfect tense uses the different forms of the auxiliary verb ‘has’ plus the main verb to show actions that have taken place already (or will/may still take place). Here’s the above example sentence in each tense, in perfect form:

Past perfect: Sarah had run to the store.
Present perfect: Sarah has run to the store.
Future perfect: Sarah will have run to the store.

In the past perfect, Sarah’s run is an earlier event in a narrative past:

Sarah had run to the store many times uneventfully so she wasn’t at all prepared for what she saw that morning.

You could use the future perfect tense to show that Sarah’s plans will not impact on another event even further in the future. For example:

Sarah will have run to the store by the time you get here so we won’t be late.

(You could also say ‘Sarah will be back from the store by the time you get here so we won’t be late.’ This is a simpler option using the future tense with the infinitive ‘to be’.) Here are some tips for using the tenses in a novel:

1. Decide which writing tenses would work best for your story

The majority of novels are written using simple past tense and the third person:

‘She ran her usual route to the store, but as she rounded the corner she came upon a disturbing sight.’

When you start drafting a novel or a scene, think about the merits of each tense. The present tense, for example, has the virtue of:

• Immediacy: The action unfolds in the same narrative moment as the reader experiences it (there is no temporal distance: Each action happens now)
• Simplicity: It’s undeniably easier to write ‘She runs her usual route to the store’ then to juggle all sorts of remote times using auxiliary verbs

Sometimes authors are especially creative in combining tense and POV. In Italo Calvino’s postmodern classic, If on a winter’s night a traveler (1979), the entire story is told in the present tense, in the second person. This has the effect of a ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ novel. To rewrite Sarah’s story in the same tense and POV:

You run your usual route to the store, but as you round the corner you come upon a disturbing sight.

This tense choice is smart for Calvino’s novel since it increases the puzzling nature of the story. In If on a winter’s night a traveler, you, the reader, are a character who buys Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveler, only to discover that there are pages missing. When you attempt to return it, you get sent on a wild goose chase after the book you want.

Tense itself can enliven an element of your story’s narration. In a thriller novel, for example, you can write tense scenes in first person for a sense of present danger:

A muffled shot. He sits up in bed, tensed and listening. Can’t hear much other than the wind scraping branches along the gutter.

2. Avoid losing clarity when mixing tenses

Because stories show us chains and sequences of events, often we need to jump back and forth between earlier and present scenes and times. This is especially true in novels where characters’ memories form a crucial part of the narrative.

It’s confusing when an author changes tense in the middle of a scene. The fragmented break in continuity makes it hard to place actions in relation to each other. For example:

Sarah runs her usual route to the store. As she turned the corner, she came upon a disturbing scene.

This is wrong because the verbs do not consistently use the same tense, even though it is clear (from context) that Sarah’s run is a continuous action in a single scene.

Ursula K. Le Guin offers excellent advice on mixing past and present in her writing manual, Steering the Craft:

‘It is highly probably that if you go back and forth between past and present tense, if you switch the tense of your narrative frequently and without some kind of signal (a line break, a dingbat,a new chapter) your reader will get all mixed up as to what happened before what and what’s happening after which and when we are, or were, at the moment.’

In short, make sure there are clear breaks between entire sections set in different narrative references.

These 10 exercises for practicing tenses provide a fun way to focus on mastering the basics.

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3: Mix the tenses for colour and variety

Le Guin raises a good point about writing tenses. Le Guin describes the downside of telling a story almost exclusively in present tense:

‘It all rather sounds alike…it’s bland, predictable, risk-free. All too often, it’s McProse. The wealth and complexity of our verb forms is part of the color of the language. Using only one tense is like having a whole set of oil paints and using only pink.’

Instead mix different tenses where appropriate, but signal changes between time settings:

For example:

That morning, she had run her usual route to the store. As she turned the corner, she had come upon a disturbing scene. Apart from the glass and metal sprayed across the road like some outgoing tide’s deposit, there were what looked like two stretchers, mostly eclipsed from view by a swarm of emergency workers.

Now, safely home, she decided to lie down, all the while trying to get that scene out of her mind.

Mixing the tenses can help to show the cause and effect of interlocking events. The use of the past perfect to describe the scene of an accident in the example above is effective because the past perfect shows what is already complete. It gives it an irrevocable quality, the quality of a haunting, living-on-in-memory event. Finished, but not finished in the character’s mind’s eye.

4. Practice showing shadowy past or present actions using verb forms

In addition to simple and perfect tenses, there are different ‘moods’ that show verbs as hypothetical or possible actions. In addition to the indicative mood (‘she runs to the store’) there is also the subjunctive mood (‘If she runs to the store’) and the potential mood (‘she may run to the store’).

The different moods are useful because they can show possibilities and scenarios that might have happened, or might still happen, under different circumstances. Here are examples for correct uses for each of the tenses (in active voice):

Subjunctive mood:

Present tense: If she runs to the store…
Past tense: If she ran to the store…
Future tense: If she should run to the store…
Present perfect tense: If she has run to the store…
Past perfect tense: If she had run to the store…
Future perfect tense: If she should have run to the store….

Think of this mood as setting up a possibility. For example: ‘If she runs to the store, she better be quick because we’re leaving in 5.’

The potential mood helps us show shadowy, more hypothetical, uncertain scenarios:

Present tense: She may run to the store.
Present perfect tense: She may have run to the store.
Past perfect: She might have run to the store.

In each of these examples, the action is a possibility and the mood (using the various forms of ‘may’) shows this.

These verb moods in conjunction with tense are useful. They help us describe situations in which a narrator or character does not have full knowledge of events, or is wondering how events might pan out. They help to build suspense in the build-up to finishing a book.

5. Practice rewriting paragraphs in different tenses

It’s often easiest to get the hang of tense by doing. Pick a paragraph by an author and rewrite in each of the tenses. Here, for example, is a paragraph from David Sedaris’ essay, ‘Buddy, Can you Spare a Tie?’:

‘The only expensive thing I actually wear is a navy blue cashmere sweater. It cost four hundred dollars and looks like it was wrestled from the mouth of a tiger. “What a shame,” the dry cleaner said the first time I brought it in. The sweater had been folded into a loaf-sized bundle, and she stroked it, the way you might a freshly dead rabbit.’

Rewritten in past simple tense:

‘The only expensive thing I actually wore was a navy blue cashmere sweater. It cost four hundred dollars and looked like it was wrestled from the mouth of a tiger. “What a shame,” the dry cleaner said the first time I brought it in. The sweater was folded into a loaf-sized bundle, and she stroked it, the way you might a freshly dead rabbit.’

Here is the same passage in past perfect:

‘The only expensive thing I had actually worn was a navy blue cashmere sweater. It had cost four hundred dollars and had looked like it had been wrestled from the mouth of a tiger. “What a shame,” the dry cleaner had said, the first time I brought it in. The sweater had been folded into a loaf-sized bundle, and she had stroked it, the way you might a freshly dead rabbit.’

The effect is of a character describing the defining experiences before another event (before buying an even more expensive item of clothing, for example). For example, you could write ‘Before the lavish suit, the only expensive thing…’ before the paragraph.

To perfect writing tenses, make your own exercises and practice rewriting extracts from your story in each tense to see the changing effect this has on your narrative.

Do you need feedback on your use of tense in a story? Get novel help from our writing community or your own, experienced writing coach.

Spanish Verb Conjugation – Past, Present & Future Tenses

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Conjugating verbs in Spanish is one of the most challenging parts of learning Spanish as a second language. This guide will help you learn how to conjugate verbs correctly for past, present and future tenses. You will find charts to master Spanish verbs ending in IR, ER, AR and more.

If you want over 400,000 Spanish verb conjugations with you where ever you go, try Spanish Translator + app. You can download it for free on your
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What Does it Mean to Conjugate Verbs?

In English, we conjugate verbs by changing verbs like into , , and .

Notice how we conjugate the verb differently depending on the perspective (who) and the tense (when).

We can visualize these differences in conjugation with the chart below.

To run – Present Tense

I run
We run

You run
You guys run

He runs; she runs
They run

In these tables, each cell represents a different “who.” When you see these verb conjugation tables, you can think of them as displayed in the chart below.

Singular
Plural
First Person
I
We

Second Person
You
You guys; you all

Third Person
He; She; It
They; Them

Usually the tables are abbreviated into a 2 column, 3 row layout rather than 3 columns and 4 rows, but the concept is the same.

For example, here’s a basic conjugation for the english verb in the past tense:

To walk – Past Tense

I walked
We walked

You walked
You guys walked

He walked; she walked
They walked

The past tense is really easy to conjugate in English. You just add “ed” to the root verb and !

It’s much more complicated in Spanish, as you’ll learn, but the same concept applies.

How to Conjugate Verbs in Spanish

Conjugating verbs in Spanish requires an understanding of a few different concepts:

1. Tense
2. Perspective
3. Verbs ending in -ar vs -er and -ir
4. Irregular verb conjugations

With those in mind, usually conjugations include the root of the word being conjugated minus the last two letters of the verb (ar, er, or ir).

Verb Tense

In English, different tenses produce verb conjugations such as:

• I eat
• I am eating
• I ate
• I will eat

See how the verb tense effects the way we conjugate? The concept applies the same in Spanish. The most common tenses that you’ll conjugate are:

• El Presente: The present tense
• El Futuro: The future tense
• El Pretérito Perfecto: The preterite tense (past tense, fixed)
• El Pretérito Imperfecto: The imperfect tense (past tense, malleable)

There are other tenses that we won’t get into in this article.

 

El Pretérito vs El Imperfecto

El preterito and el imperfecto are both past-tense conjugations. Learning which one is more appropriate will take time, but we can simplify with these guidelines.

Use el preterito when speaking about:

• A single event in the past
• Events that began and ended in the past

Use el imperfecto when speaking about:

• A habitual or repeated action
• An ongoing action with no specified completion
• General descriptions of physical or emotional states of being in the past
• Expressions of time in the past

For more on the imperfect vs the preterite tense, check out this article by our friends at Lawless Spanish.

Perspective

In order to conjugate verbs, you must be speaking about a specific person or subject. There are only 6 perspectives you need to know, and they line up with the cells in the chart shown above.

The six perspectives for conjugating verbs are:

• I → Yo
• You → Tú
• He/She/It → Él, Ella, Usted
• We → Nosotros
• You guys/you all → Vosotros (only used in Spain, otherwise use ellos, ellas, or ustedes)
• They/them → Ellos, Ellas, Ustedes

The perspective or the subject of the verb will change how it’s conjugated.

AR, ER, and IR Verbs

In Spanish, it’s easy to tell when a word is a verb because all verbs end in one of these three ways.

• AR: Caminar, Hablar, Presentar
• ER: Comer, Ver*, Correr, Conocer*, Saber*
• IR: Vivir, Escribir, Subir, Describir, Dormir*

* Indicates verb has irregular conjugations

There are different rules for conjugation depending on the last two letters of these verbs. In other words, Spanish verbs ending in AR are conjugated differently than verbs ending in ER and IR.

Irregular Spanish Verbs

For the most part, what you’ll learn in this article applies to any verb in the Spanish language. However, some verbs are irregular, meaning they get conjugated differently. They break the rules you’re about to learn. It’s important to keep this in mind, and you may want to keep a list of irregular verbs and their proper conjugations. A good one can be found on Fluentin3months.

Present Tense Verb Conjugations

The first tense you’ll learn how to conjugate for is the present tense, or el presente. In the present tense, AR verbs are conjugated differently than ER and IR Verbs.

Present Tense Conjugations for AR Verbs

Regular AR verbs are conjugated in the present tense like this:

 

o
amos

as
ais

a
an

Let’s try some examples

Hablar – to talk

• Yo hablo
• Tú hablas
• Él habla
• Nosotros hablamos
• Vosotros habláis
• Ellas hablan

Caminar – to walk

• Yo camino
• Tú caminas
• Ella camina
• Nosotros caminamos
• Vosotros caminais
• Ellos caminan

Present Tense Conjugations for ER & IR Verbs

In the present tense, verbs ending in ER and IR share the same method of conjugation:

o
imos

es
eis

e
en

Here are some examples of regular Spanish vergs ending in ER and IR in the present tense.

Comer

• Yo como
• Tú comes
• Él come
• Nosotros comemos
• Vosotros comeis
• Ellos comen

Vivir (“to live”):

• Yo vivo
• Tú vives
• Usted vive
• Nosotros vivimos
• Vosotros
• Ellos viven

Past Tense Verb Conjugations

Conjugating AR Verbs in the Preterite Tense (El Pretérito)

Regular AR verbs are conjugated in Spanish like this:

aba
ábamos

abas
abais

aba
aban

Here’s an example:

Tomar –

• Yo tomaba
• Tú tomabas
• Él tomaba
• Nosotros tomábamos
• Vosotros tomabais
• Ellos tomaban

Imperfect ER/IR Verb Conjugations (Imperfecto)

Regular verbs ending in ER and IR are conjugated into the imperfect tense like this:

ía
íamos

ías
íais

ía
ían

Here’s an example of an ER verb conjugated into the imperfect tense:

Escribir –

• Yo escribía
• Tú escribías
• Él escribía
• Nosotros escribíamos
• Vosotros escribíais
• Ellos escribían

Conjugating Verbs in the Preterite Tense (El Pretérito)

Conjugating AR Verbs in the Preterite Tense

Regular AR verbs are conjugated in spanish like this:

é
amos*

aste
asteis

ó
aron

* Note that the first person plural (we) conjugation is the same in preterite tense as present tense.

Here’s some examples of regular AR verbs translated into the preterite tense:

Hablar – to talk

• Yo hablé
• Tú hablaste
• Él habló
• Nosotros hablamos
• Vosotros hablasteis
• Ellas hablaron

Caminar – to walk

• Yo caminé
• Tú caminaste
• Usted caminó
• Nosotros caminamos
• Vosotros caminasteis
• Ellos caminaron

Conjugating ER/IR Verbs in the Preterite Tense

Regular Spanish verbs that end with ER or IR are conjugated into the preterite tense as follows:

í
imos

iste
isteis

ió
ieron

Let’s try conjugating an ER/IR verb into the preterite tense.

Escribir (“to write”):

• Yo escribí
• Tú escribiste
• Ella escribió
• Nosotros escribimos
• Vosotros escribisteis
• Ellas escribieron

Future Tense Spanish Verb Conjugations

Unlike the other tenses we’ve learned about thus far, constructing a conjugation in the future tense doesn’t require you to discern between AR, ER, and IR verbs. All regular verbs are conjugated the same way in the future tense. Here’s how:

é
emos

ás
éis

á
án

Instead of cutting off the last two letters like we’ve done on other conjugations, the future tense just adds characters onto the end of the verb.

Here’s an example:

Tomar (“to take” or “to drink”):

• Yo tomaré
• Tú tomarás
• Ella tomará
• Nosotros tomaremos
• Vosotros tomareis
• Ellos tomarán

For more instruction on using the future tense, go through this lesson by StudySpanish

Conclusion

One of the most important things to keep in mind while you’re learning Spanish is that not all verbs follow the rules outlined in this post. Many verbs you’ll come across are irregular.

Some of the other ways you might see verbs conjugated in Spanish are:

1. Yo estaba caminando cuando…
2. He vivido aquí por 3 años

The translations of these phrases are as follows:

1. I was walking when …
2. I have lived here for 3 years

These conjugations represent additional verb tenses, which you’ll learn more about as you progress as a student of Spanish.

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Dreaming of speaking Spanish like a native? Check out these great articles.
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Happy conjugating!

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Riley Farabaugh
Founder & CEO
Monte Verde Media