We use the past tense, or pretérito perfecto simple, for events that happened at a specific point in time in the past. We usually indicate this specific point by using a time expression.
Here are some common past tense time expressions in Spanish:
Ayer – yesterday
Anoche – last night
El martes pasado – on Tuesday/last Tuesday
El martes – on Tuesday/last Tuesday (we usually omit the word pasado)
El viernes por la noche – On Friday night
Examples:
Ayer a las siete fui al supermercado. (Yesterday at seven I went to the supermarket.)
El lunes por la noche fui al parque. (On Monday night I went to the park.)
El jueves pasado fuimos al gimnasio. (Last Thursday we went to the gym.)
