Spanish preterite (pretérito perfecto)

We use the past tense, also called pretérito perfecto in Spanish or preterite in English, 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 - last Tuesday

el martes - on Tuesday (if we use it with the preterite, it implicitly means last Tuesday)

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.)

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