the nine Spanish tenses GCSE asks for
Here they all are on one verb ~ hablar, to speak ~ so the only thing changing between rows is the tense itself.
| tense | hablar | in English |
|---|---|---|
| present | hablo | I speak, I do speak, I am speaking (as a habit) |
| present continuous | estoy hablando | I am speaking (right now) |
| present perfect | he hablado | I have spoken |
| preterite/past | hablé | I spoke, I did speak |
| imperfect | hablaba | I used to speak, I was speaking |
| imperfect continuous | estaba hablando | I was speaking |
| near future | voy a hablar | I am going to speak |
| simple future | hablaré | I will speak |
| conditional | hablaría | I would speak |
it is a shorter list than it looks
Four of the nine are a helper verb plus a form that never changes for person ~ the two continuous tenses, the present perfect and the near future. Two more, the future and the conditional, share their irregular stems with each other and add their endings to the whole infinitive rather than to a stem. The real work is the present, the preterite and knowing when the imperfect is the right choice instead.
At foundation you will get a long way on the present, the preterite and the near future. At higher tier the mark schemes reward using a range of them accurately, which is a different skill from being able to recite the tables.
Which tenses you need is the same at both tiers ~ what differs is how much of each one you have to produce, down to which persons. Each board publishes a free grammar guide setting out exactly what its own specification asks for, and yours is the authority on it:
drill them instead of reading them
All nine tenses across 414 verbs, each one taught before it is tested and brought back just before you would have forgotten it.
start free