Future and past tense verbs
This is one of my most hardest things to deal with when learning this language. Right now I can carry on a pretty good conversation but when it comes to talking about something in the past and future, I freeze. Is there an effective method or chart that I can study from? Or do I acquire this part of the language by just speaking? I know that there are perfect and imperfect parts of past tense and I've studied both forms it's just when it comes to using them in the correct context, I end up misusing them.
3 Answers
Perhaps this PowerPoint on the Preterite and imperfect tenses might help. But really exposure and practice is the best way to learn.
It´s just a matter of practice. More practice learning them (excercizes on the web, or in text books or workbooks) followed by practicing speaking. In between, maybe a little writing small stories or at least paragraphs to bridge the gap (not quite as tough and realistic and speaking in real-time, but you Are practicing forming sentences and differentiating between the various forms of past.
I like the Practice Makes Perfect series Verbs book. Cheap, portable, with pages you can write right on, and answers in the back. You might want to check sites like DuoLingo too.
I think writing, the PMP verb book, and speaking will help the most.
Buena suerte.
There are several sites that will drill you on verb tenses. Some of them allow you to select the tenses you want to study.
At first don't be overly concerned about which past tense is grammatically correct. The two past tenses are, I think, the most difficult to learn the conjugations as they have the most irregular forms. The future is easy as it has very few irregular forms and you can use the "simple future" = present tense ir + a + infinitive.
