Vacation Spanish

The past and future tenses of verbs in Spanish include the preterit, imperfect, regular future and conditional. These tenses are far too complex to describe within a lesson plan for basic level conversation. For beginning level conversational students it is permissible to simply stress that one is speaking of the future or past while using the present conjugation of the verb.

For the Past one can simply use the phrase, En el pasado – In the past. An example would be:

Yo hablo con ella, en el pasado – I speak with her, in the past.

You could clarify the statement by using:

Ayer – Yesterday
Antes – Before

Hace un minuto… – One minute ago…
Hace dos horas… – Two Hours ago…
Hace tres días… – Three days ago…
Hace cuatro meses… – Four months ago…
Hace cinco años… – Five years ago…

For example: Yo hablo con ella, hace cinco minutos. –I speak with her, five minutes ago.

For the future tense one can use, en el futuro.

For example: Yo hablo con ella, en el futuro.– I speak with her, in the future.

You can clarify it by adding:

mañana – tomorrow
la próxima semana – next week
despúes – afterwards
más tarde – later on