Chapter 12 of 16 · Explore the Spanish path
Verbs and stories · Chapter 12 of 16
Recognise what already happened
No new words here, only new shapes. Learn to spot the ending that says something happened, and the four background forms that hold a scene still while nothing happens yet.
≈ 4 min of reading · Practise at your own pace
What’s in this chapter
- No new words here — only new shapes of verbs you already have.
- When a book says what happened next, the verb almost always ends in -ó or -ió.
- fue
fweh is both was and went; the sentence settles which. - Background forms — era estaba había tenía — hold the story still while the -ó forms move it forward.
How a verb changes to say it already happened
A story tells you what already happened, so its verbs change shape. Read each pair across: the form for now, then the form for then.
| Now | Then | Now | Then |
|---|---|---|---|
| ve | vio | viene | vino |
| cae | cayó | dice | dijo |
| pregunta | preguntó | camina | caminó |
Recognise these; you never have to produce them. The accented -ó sits on the loud last beat — the story past is audible. dijo and vino change shape instead: the commonest verbs are irregular.
Verbs that hold a scene still
These four say how things already were. A story leans on them to set a scene, before anything actually happens.
| Spanish | English | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| era | was | what it was — the lasting kind |
| estaba | was | where or how it was |
| había | there was, there were | the past of hay |
| tenía | had | what somebody had |
The two words for is stay two words in the past: era from es, estaba from está. -ó forms move the story forward; these hold it still.
Small words that hold a story together
None of these name a thing or an action. They join the parts of a story together and say when something happened.
| English | Spanish | English | Spanish |
|---|---|---|---|
| and | y | now | ahora |
| but | pero | with | con |
| then | entonces | that | que |
| because | porque | one day | un día |
que — that — joins sentences, and unlike English it is not left out: Creo que…
The fox was hungry, but the bird was in the tree.
El zorro tenía hambre, pero el pájaro estaba en el árbol.
ehl SOH-rroh teh-NEE-ah AHM-breh, PEH-roh ehl PAH-hah-roh ehs-TAH-bah ehn ehl AHR-bohl
Nothing has happened yet, so both verbs are background forms. The moment something happens, the verb takes the -ó shape: Entonces Mina caminó.
Move the story, then hold it still
- Había una vez un ratón.
Three words to take whole.
Show answer +Hide answer −
Había una vez un ratón.ah-BEE-ah OO-nah behs oon rrah-TOHN “Once upon a time there was a mouse” - Fue al bosque.
Which fue fits a place?
Show answer +Hide answer −
Fue al bosque.fweh ahl BOHS-keh “He went to the forest”