Preterit tener and hacer
Do tener and hacer mean the same thing in the preterit?
1 Answer
No. The basic meaning of "tener" (in any tense) is "to possess" while "haber (in any tense) is an auxiliary verb (as in the English "I have gone." / "I had gone.") nothing to do with possession. It just so happens that English can use "have" with either meaning but that's just a peculiarity of English.
In the interest of full disclosure, the 3rd person singular of "habe" can also be used to express "existence" (Hay tres personas en el cuarto. = There are three people in the room).
Oops! I just noticed that you wrote "hacer" not "haber" (which is what usually causes the confusion).The basic meaning of "hacer" is "to do". There are idioms e.g. "hace calor" which are normally translated as some form of "to be" but I can't think of a case where "hacer" and "tener" are even remotely similar in translation.
