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The progressive aspects (also called "continuous tenses") are formed by using the appropriate tense of estar + present participle (gerundio), and the perfect constructions are formed by using the appropriate tense of haber + past participle (participio). When the past participle is used in this way, it invariably ends with -o.
Perfect: In Spanish, verbs that are conjugated with haber ("to have [done something]") are in the perfect aspect. Perfective: In Spanish, verbs in the preterite are in the perfective aspect. Imperfective: In Spanish, the present, imperfect, and future tenses are in the imperfective aspect.
A Spanish verb has nine indicative tenses with more-or-less direct English equivalents: the present tense ('I walk'), the preterite ('I walked'), the imperfect ('I was walking' or 'I used to walk'), the present perfect ('I have walked'), the past perfect —also called the pluperfect— ('I had walked'), the future ('I will walk'), the future ...
The present tense can replace not only the perfect tense, but also sometimes the imperfect tense: [40] tōtīs trepidātur castrīs (Caesar) [41] 'in the whole camp there is panic' (i.e. people were panicking) After dum 'while', in a past context, the present indicative regularly has the meaning of an imperfect tense: [42]
The imperfect of ser is likewise a continuation of the Latin imperfect (of esse), with the same stem appearing in tú eres (thanks to pre-classical Latin rhotacism). The imperfect of ver (veía etc.) was historically considered regular in Old Spanish, where the infinitive veer provided the stem ve-, but that is no longer the case in standard ...
Regarding tense agreement, if the main clause uses the imperfect, preterite, or past perfect indicative, either the imperfect or past perfect subjunctive is used. However, if the event of the subordinate clause is timelessly true, the present subjunctive is optional: " Dios decretó que las serpientes no tengan patas " ("God decreed that snakes ...
Spanish verbs are a complex area of Spanish grammar, with many combinations of tenses, aspects and moods (up to fifty conjugated forms per verb).Although conjugation rules are relatively straightforward, a large number of verbs are irregular.
For example, the English verbs "to know" (the state of knowing) and "to find out" (knowing viewed as a "completed action") correspond to the imperfect and perfect forms of the equivalent verbs in French and Spanish, savoir and saber. This is also true when the sense of verb "to know" is "to know somebody", in this case opposed in aspect to the ...