Generally speaking, there are three main meals that many people eat each day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Do you know how to say the names of those three meals in Spanish? Let's see how the answer to that question depends upon where you happen to be in the Spanish-speaking world.
If you are in Spain or Mexico, the following are the names of the three main daily meals:
es la hora del desayuno
it's breakfast time,
Caption 7, Clase Aula Azul Acciones habituales y en este momento - Part 1
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Todos los días, hago la comida a mediodía
Every day, I make lunch at midday
Caption 24, Ariana Mi Casa
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y normalmente cuando llego a casa, me hago la cena,
and usually when I get home, I make myself dinner,
Caption 30, El Aula Azul Actividades Diarias
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In the following clip, our Mexican friend Karla mentions all three of these daily meals as she tells us how, in her country, tacos can be eaten at any time of the day!
Eh... Puedes encontrar tacos en todas las esquinas, en todas las ciudades de todo México y puedes comerlo, en realidad, de desayuno, de comida o de cena,
Um... You can find tacos on every corner, in every city throughout Mexico, and you can eat it, actually, for breakfast, lunch, or dinner,
Captions 37-39, Hispanoamericanos en Berlín Karla y los tacos - Part 2
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In contrast, in most Latin American countries, the names of the three main meals are as follows:
Hoy es domingo y vamos a hacer el desayuno.
Today is Sunday, and we're going to make breakfast.
Captions 6-7, Quito Desayuno con Julia
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Al mediodía, preparo el almuerzo.
At noon, I make lunch.
Caption 14, GoSpanish La rutina diaria de Maru
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While some places use the word comida (e.g. Colombia), others use the term cena (e.g. Argentina). Let's hear a couple of clips:
¿Qué es la comida?
What's for dinner?
Caption 9, Los Años Maravillosos Capítulo 1 - Part 3
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Bueno, espero que lleguemos justo para la cena porque tengo un hambre que me muero.
Well, I hope that we are arriving just [in time] for dinner because I am dying of hunger.
Caption 49, Muñeca Brava 44 El encuentro - Part 6
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As we have just seen, the main difference between the meals of the day in Spain and Mexico vs. other Latin American countries is the term people use to talk about lunch. However, if you happen to hear the word almuerzo in Spain, you should be aware that, in that country, almuerzo refers to a mid-morning snack. In addition, it is very common for Spanish people to enjoy an afternoon snack called la merienda. Let's hear Raquel and Marisa explain this in detail:
El almuerzo es lo que tomamos entre el desayuno y la comida. Pero además tenemos la merienda y la cena. La merienda suele ser a las seis de la tarde. Y la cena es la última comida del día.
The mid-morning snack is what we have between breakfast and lunch. But in addition, we have the afternoon snack and dinner. The afternoon snack is usually at six in the afternoon. And dinner is the last meal of the day.
Captions 30-33, Raquel Presentaciones
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That's all for this lesson. We hope you learned some new words today, and don't forget to send us your suggestions and comments.
Today, we will embark on a brief journey that encompasses all the Spanish verb tenses. However, rather than focusing on how to conjugate the verb tenses in Spanish, which you may or may not have already learned, we'll take a closer look at when to use each one, using the extremely common verb hablar ("to talk" or "to speak") to illustrate them whenever possible, as well as plenty of examples from the Yabla Spanish video library.
How many different tenses in Spanish are there in total? According to the Real Academia Española, there are sixteen Spanish verb tenses. There are also some "bonus tenses," which aren't officially included in their classification, which we will also cover in this lesson. Let's get started.
To make matters just a bit more complicated, Spanish verb tenses fall into three categories called "moods," which are the indicative, the subjunctive, and the imperative. Generally speaking, the indicative verb tenses in Spanish are the first Spanish verb tenses learned, and, in contrast to the Spanish verb tenses in the other moods (subjunctive and imperative), they tend to deal with facts and objective reality. Let's take a look:
Let's start with the present tense in Spanish, also known as the "simple present." This tense is primarily used in two ways, the first being to talk about a present action that is habitual, repeated, or ongoing. Let's take a look:
Aunque soy extranjero, yo hablo español muy bien.
Although I'm a foreigner, I speak Spanish very well.
Caption 56, Clase Aula Azul Información con subjuntivo e indicativo - Part 4
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Since it is an ongoing fact that the speaker speaks Spanish very well, it is appropriate to use the present tense. We can also use this tense to talk about an action that is actually in progress at the moment:
¿Hablo con la Señora Pepa Flores, la manager de Amalia Durango?
Am I speaking with Mrs. Pepa Flores, Amalia Durango's manager?
Captions 37-38, Confidencial: El rey de la estafa Capítulo 1 - Part 5
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Notice that the second example of the present tense was translated to the English present progressive tense. This is the tense with a form of the word "to be" and the gerund, or -ing form of a verb ("I'm eating," "He's swimming," etc.). The present progressive tense in Spanish, which is similarly formed with a present conjugation of the verb estar (to be) and a verb's gerundio (gerund, which usually ends in -ando or -iendo in Spanish), is always translated in this fashion and really emphasizes that an action is in progress at this very moment. Let's take a look:
OK. Xavi, ahora que estamos hablando de... de comida, de alimentos, quisiera hacerte una pregunta.
OK. Xavi, now that we're talking about... about food, about foods, I'd like to ask you a question.
Captions 23-24, Carlos y Xavi Part 3 Diferencias de vocabulario entre España y Colombia
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For more information about and examples of the present progressive tense in Spanish, check out this lesson as well as this video that contrasts the use of the simple present with the present progressive. Now that we've seen a couple of the present verb tenses in Spanish, let's check out some of the Spanish past tenses.
The imperfect is one of the Spanish past tenses and talks about an action that was ongoing or habitual in the past or that was in progress and/or interrupted in the moment described. Translations for the imperfect in Spanish for the verb hablar could thus include "used to talk," "would talk," or "was talking." Let's take a look at couple of examples:
Bueno, cuando yo era pequeña hablaba con la ficha de Einstein.
Well, when I was little, I used to talk to the Einstein card.
Caption 36, La Familia Cheveroni Capítulo 1 - Part 3
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Ya que estás, contanos a los dos... ¿De qué hablaban?
Now that you're here, tell us both... What were you talking about?
Caption 2, Muñeca Brava 45 El secreto - Part 6
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To learn more about the imperfect tense in Spanish, check out this lesson entitled: The Imperfect Tense in Spanish: The Past That Just Won't Quit.
The past equivalent of the present progressive tense is the past progressive tense, which emphasizes that an action in the past was in progress. As with the present and present progressive tenses, while the imperfect tense in Spanish can sometimes be translated with the past progressive in English ("I was eating," "You were running," etc.), the past progressive tense in Spanish is always translated in this fashion, with "was" or "were" plus a verb's gerund. It is formed in the same way as the present progressive except that the verb estar is conjugated in the imperfect tense:
Le hemos despistado. -Porque estaba hablando.
We've confused her. -Because she was talking.
Caption 59, Jugando a la Brisca En la calle
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The preterite is another one of the Spanish past tenses. In contrast to the imperfect tense, the preterite tense in Spanish describes past actions that have been completed. It could be compared with verbs ending in -ed in English (e.g. "He fished," "We traveled," etc.). Let's see an example:
Pero claro, en Televisión Española me hablaron de Gastón Almanza
But of course, at Spanish Television they talked to me about Gaston Almanza
Caption 13, Confidencial: El rey de la estafa Capítulo 3 - Part 10
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The preterite is also used for past actions that interrupted other actions in progress, which would often be conjugated in the imperfect, as in the following example:
Yo hablaba por teléfono cuando mi novio me habló con una voz muy alta.
I was talking on the phone when my boyfriend talked to me in a very loud voice.
To find out more about the preterite tense, we recommend this lesson from our Yabla lesson archives.
The future tense in Spanish is pretty straightforward; it talks about something we "will" do in the future. Let's take a look:
Hoy hablaremos de las preposiciones de lugar.
Today, we will talk about prepositions of place.
Caption 9, Ana Carolina Preposiciones de lugar
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Interestingly, sometimes the Spanish future tense is used in situations where English speakers would employ "would" to imply disbelief:
¿Y tú me hablarás de esta manera?
And you'd talk to me like that?
So, what about the Spanish conditional tenses? The simple conditional tense is the typical Spanish equivalent of saying one "would" do something in English, often in a hypothetical situation:
Bueno, si yo fuera tú, hablaría con él.
Well, if I were you, I would speak with him.
Caption 24, El Aula Azul La Doctora Consejos: Subjuntivo y condicional
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This tense is often, but not always, seen in conjunction with the imperfect subjunctive tense (fuera, or "I were" in the example above), which we will cover in part two of this lesson, to specify that if some hypothetical situation "were" in place, something else "would" happen.
Although this tense is called the present perfect in English, its Spanish name is préterito perfecto ("preterite perfect" or "past perfect"), and it is the Spanish past tense used to say that one "has done" something within a specific time period, which could be anything from that day to one's life. It is formed with the verb haber, which is translated as "has" or "have" in English, along with the participle form of the verb (which will typically have the suffix -ado or -ido in Spanish and -ed or -en in English). Let's take a look:
El día de hoy, hemos hablado de artículos que utilizamos al día a día
Today, we've talked about items we use every day
Caption 41, Ana Carolina Artículos de aseo personal
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Interestingly, in Spain, the present perfect is often used to describe things that happened in the recent past in situations in which English speakers would use the simple past and Latin Americans would more likely use the preterite. This usage can be seen quite clearly throughout this video from El Aula Azul. Let's take a look at an excerpt:
Pero cuando ha salido de clase, cuando hemos terminado la clase, ha ido a coger el coche, y resulta que la ventanilla estaba rota.
But when she's left class, when we've finished the class, she's gone to get her car, and it turns out that the window was broken.
Captions 12-14, El Aula Azul Conversación: Un día de mala suerte
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Although the translators at Yabla chose to translate this tense literally in this video to facilitate the learning of the present perfect tense, this sounds quite awkward in English, where a native speaker would probably say: "But when she left class, when we finished the class, she went to get her car, and it turns out that the window was broken."
In this video, Carlos provides an even more thorough explanation about when to use this tense as part of a useful four-part series on the different past tenses in Spanish.
The pluperfect is the past equivalent of the present perfect tense. It is formed with the imperfect conjugation of the verb haber and the participle form of the infinitive. It is often used to describe things we "had" already done when something else occurred.
que no era tan escandalosa como... como la gente había hab'... había hablado al principio.
That it wasn't as scandalous as... as the people had sa'... had said in the beginning.
Captions 41-42, Los Juegos Olímpicos Pablo Herrera
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Also known as the preterite perfect, the past anterior tense is extremely similar to the pluperfect tense but employs the preterite conjugation of the verb haber plus the participle. It is used more commonly in literature and less in everyday speech. While we couldn't find an example of this tense with the verb hablar, we did find one with the verb coger (to grab):
Apenas lo hubo cogido, el niño se despertó.
He'd barely grabbed it, the little boy woke up.
Captions 46-47, Chus recita poemas Antonio Machado
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Just in case you were wondering, an example sentence with the verb hablar might be: Yo ya hube hablado con mi maestra antes del examen (I had already spoken to my teacher before the test), and there would be no difference in translation between this sentence and the same sentence with the verb conjugated in its pluperfect form (Yo ya había hablado con mi maestra antes del examen).
If one said, Yo ya habré hablado con el chico por teléfono antes de conocerlo cara a cara (I will have already spoken to the guy on the phone before meeting him face to face), he or she would be employing the future perfect tense, which includes the future tense conjugation of the verb haber plus the participle. This conveys the English construction "will have." Let's take a look at an example of this tense from the Yabla Spanish library:
Ay, ¿por qué se me habrá ocurrido comer bandeja paisa antes de que me encerraran, ah?
Oh, why would it have occurred to me to eat "bandeja paisa" [a Colombian dish] before they locked me up, huh?
Captions 27-28, La Familia Cheveroni Capítulo 1 - Part 3
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In this example, we see that, similarly to the future tense, the future perfect tense can also be used to express disbelief, and it is translated with the English word "would" (rather than "will") in such cases.
The conditional perfect tense in Spanish is the equivalent of saying "would have" in English. It utilizes the conditional form of the verb haber plus the participle to talk about what one "would have" done or what "would have" happened in a hypothetical situation:
Seguro que a él sí le habrían aceptado las invitaciones.
Surely they would have accepted his invitations.
Caption 24, Los Años Maravillosos Capítulo 6 - Part 5
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An example with the verb hablar would be: Si lo pudiera hacer otra vez, habría hablado con el chico que me gustaba (If I could do it again, I'd have spoken to the guy I liked). Yabla's lesson, "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda," expands upon the conditional perfect tense and more.
Once you know all Spanish tenses in the indicative mood, you could also conjugate the verb estar in its many tenses to come up with additional progressive tenses, as follows:
Preterite Progressive (Pretérito continuo): Yo estuve hablando (I was talking)
Conditional Progressive (Condicional continuo): Yo estaría hablando (I would be talking)
Future Progressive (Futuro continuo): Yo estaré hablando (I will be talking)
We could even apply this to the compound tenses we learned:
Present Perfect Progressive (Pretérito perfecto continuo): Yo he estado hablando (I have been talking)
Pluperfect Progressive (Pretérito pluscuamperfecto continuo): Yo había estado hablando (I had been talking)
Conditional Perfect Progressive (Condicional compuesto continuo): Yo habría estado hablando (I would have been talking)
Future Perfect Progressive (Futuro compuesto continuo): Yo habré estado hablando (I will have been talking)
That was a lot of Spanish verb tenses!!! And that was just the first ten verb tenses in Spanish! Part two of this lesson will deal with the verb tenses in Spanish in the other two "moods," subjunctive and imperative. In the meantime, we hope you enjoyed part one of this lesson on Spanish verb tenses... and don't forget to leave us your suggestions and comments.
While the most common translation for the Spanish verb encontrar is "to find," this verb is quite versatile and can be used to express a plethora of ideas. Let's take a look at some notable examples.
As previously stated, encontrar most typically means "to find" in the sense of "locate" or "discover," as in the following examples:
...desde Argentina hasta México, podemos encontrar cumbia.
...from Argentina to Mexico, we can find cumbia.
Caption 24, Sonido Babel - La cumbia
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Pero abuelo,
But Grandpa,
yo encontré muchas cosas para hacer el regalo de Guillermina.
I found a lot of things to make Guillermina's gift.
Caption 14, Guillermina y Candelario - La Peluqueria del Mar
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However, the verb encontrar has several additional uses. It is frequently seen in its reflexive form, encontrarse, which, similarly to the verb estar, can mean "to be" or "find oneself":
Porque Barcelona se encuentra entre el mar y la montaña.
Because Barcelona is located between the sea and the mountains.
Caption 14, Blanca - Sobre la ciudad de Barcelona
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Sí, el Señor Aldo Sirenio no se encuentra en este momento en la empresa.
Yes, Mister Aldo Sirenio is not at the company at the moment.
Caption 35, Yago - 5 La ciudad
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La gente verdaderamente se encuentra muy preocupada.
People are truly very worried.
Caption 19, Los Años Maravillosos - Capítulo 1
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Note that, like the verb estar (to be), encontrarse can refer to physical location, a temporary state of being, or the fact of being physically present. For this reason, any of the previous examples could be replaced by the verb estar with no change in translation as follows:
-Porque Barcelona está entre el mar y la montaña
-Sí, el Señor Aldo Sirenio no está en este momento en la empresa.
-La gente verdaderamente está muy preocupada
Now, let's look at an example where encontrarse might be more literally translated as "to find onself":
De nuevo me encuentro sin un solo centavo
Again I find myself without a single cent
Caption 40, Control Machete - El Apostador
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Bueno Adrián, ¿qué tal estás?
Well Adrian, how are you?
¿Cómo te encuentras?
How do you feel?
Captions 5-6, El Aula Azul - La Doctora Consejos: Subjuntivo y condicional
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Quiero pedir una cita para hoy
I want to make an appointment for today
porque no me encuentro bien.
because I don't feel well.
Captions 9-10, Ariana - Cita médica
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That said, should a Spanish speaker ask you, "¿Cómo te encuentras?" ("How are you?" or "How do you feel?"), possible answers might include, "Estoy bien" (I'm well), "Más o menos" (OK), or "Me siento mal" (I feel bad). Just don't say "Estoy aquí" (I'm here) since this question most definitely does not refer to your whereabouts! If the question is "¿Dónde te encuentras?" (Where are you?), on the other hand, "Estoy en casa" (I'm at home), or wherever you might be, would be a perfectly acceptable response.
Additionally, the reflexive verb encontrarse con can mean either "to meet" in a planned fashion or "to run into" by chance:
Eh, mi hermanito menor se encontró con la noviecita.
Hey, my little brother met up with his little girlfriend.
Caption 24, Los Años Maravillosos - Capítulo 1
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Imagínate abuelo,
Imagine, Grandpa,
que cuando regresábamos de la escuela
that when we were coming back from school,
nos encontramos con mi amiga, la rana.
we ran into my friend, the frog.
Captions 16-18, Guillermina y Candelario - Una Amiga muy Presumida
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In fact, el encuentro is also a noun which can mean either a planned or chance meeting or encounter.
Now, let's look at some alternative meanings of the regular (non-reflexive) form of encontrar, which can also be used in a similar manner as the verb parecer (to seem):
Bueno, doctor, y a mi enfermito ¿cómo lo encuentra?
Well, Doctor, and my little patient, how is he?
Captions 23-24, El Ausente - Acto 1
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Si al mundo lo encuentras enfermizo, delirante y brutal
If you find the world sickly, delirious and brutal
Caption 2, SiZu Yantra - Bienvenido
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Although the first example could literally be translated as "How do you find him?" a viable Spanish alternative could be ¿Cómo le parece? (How does he seem to you?), as the doctor is essentially being questioned about his opinion regarding the state of the patient. As the second example also uses the concept of "finding" to describe one's opinion, si el mundo le parece enfermizo (if the world seems sickly to you) expresses a similar idea.
Finally, like in English, encontrar can be used to indicate a determination of fact, or "finding":
El jurado lo encontró culpable por robo en primer grado.
The jury found him guilty of first-degree theft.
These are just some of the many uses of the verb encontrar. We hope that you have found them useful y que no te encuentres muy agobiado/a (you don't feel too overwhelmed). And don't forget to send us your comments and suggestions!
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