past tense

[aliendroid]

Which past tense can one use in every situation? I want to learn just one right now and use it for everything. Which one is the best?

This chick I called didn't understand that I was trying to describe something that happened last sunday and I wasted 10 minutes ($55 cents) explaining in my bad spanish. It's fun talking to them on the phone. Lot's of laughing at my stupid mistakes in spanish. lol.

[Bueller]

Use the past imperfect for any situation which is viewed as being continuous or repeated in the past.

Use the preterite for anything viewed as either having occurred only once, or if repeated/continuous is viewed as being completed (e.g. modified by "always", "never", or "between x and y dates").

Also, use the preterite to describe an action that took place within another action: "As I was opening the door, I stubbed my toe on it."

The verb tense used often changes the meaning of the verb, such as with "conocer", which means "I knew (someone)" or "I met (someone)", depending on whether you use the past continuous or the preterite, so it's good to get familiar with these tenses.

I highly recommend A Comprehensive Spanish Grammar, by Jacques de Bruyne. It is divided into 1322 segments, so you can tape it to your hand and read it bit by bit during otherwise wasted moments over the course of a few weeks.

[Jim]

The short answer is to use the preterite. It is more common. It will not always be correct but it will always be understood.

Also the "no-brianer" way to express the future is with a form of the verb to go.

voy a hablar=I am going to talk
hablaré=I will talk.

Thus you use the verb to go which is common followed by "a" and the infinitive. No messing with complicated verb endings.

[aliendroid]

Thanks yall. I'll learn everything in due time, but I need to be able to get my point across for now.

[aliendroid]

I noticed in the preterite the nosotros conjugation is often the same as in present tense. For example, bailar.

present tense.
nosotros bialamos

pret
nosotros bialamos

How do you distinguish them from each other?

[LingoShop.com]

To be very honest, saying which past tense should I use is like saying what verb should I use in every situation.

Spanish is a verb-based language. If you get almost everything else incorrect in a sentence but conjugate the verb correctly, 99% of the time, they will understand you.

Don't take conjugation lightly. It's very important to Spanish speakers!!