Antes vs. Ahora - The Habitual Past

In Lesson 1 you learned the imperfecto endings. This lesson teaches you when to reach for them. The imperfecto is the tense of habit and description: things you used to do regularly, the way places used to be, routines that repeated for years. Pair it with a present-tense sentence about today and you have one of the most natural patterns in spoken Spanish: antes esto, ahora aquello. By the end of the lesson, you can describe how your life used to look in five sentences.

The Habitual Triggers

Certain time markers almost always pull a verb into the imperfecto. They signal "this happened repeatedly, with no clear endpoint." Memorise this short list and let it do the work:

Spanish	English
antes	before, in the past
siempre	always
nunca	never
de pequeño / pequeña	as a child
de niño / niña	as a kid
de joven	when young
todos los días	every day
todos los veranos	every summer
cada domingo	every Sunday
los sábados	on Saturdays
a menudo	often
normalmente	usually
antiguamente	in the old days

When you see or hear any of these, the imperfecto is almost always the right choice:

• Antes vivíamos en un piso pequeño. – We used to live in a small flat.
• De pequeña jugaba al fútbol con mis primos. – As a kid I used to play football with my cousins.
• Todos los veranos íbamos al pueblo de mi abuela. – Every summer we went to my grandmother's village.
• Los sábados mi padre cocinaba paella. – On Saturdays my father used to cook paella.
• Antiguamente había una panadería en cada esquina. – In the old days there was a bakery on every corner.

Antes / Ahora — The Pairing Pattern

Spanish loves contrasting "before" with "now." The structure is simple:

Antes + imperfecto. Ahora + presente.

Use it to talk about how your life, your habits, or your neighbourhood have changed. The imperfecto sets the old reality; the present states the new one.

• Antes fumaba mucho. Ahora no fumo nada. – I used to smoke a lot. Now I don't smoke at all.
• Antes vivía con mis padres. Ahora vivo solo. – I used to live with my parents. Now I live alone.
• Antes jugaba al fútbol. Ahora juego al pádel. – I used to play football. Now I play padel.
• Antes la plaza estaba llena los domingos. Ahora hay menos gente. – The square used to be full on Sundays. Now there are fewer people.
• Antes leía mucho. Ahora veo más series. – I used to read a lot. Now I watch more shows.

The pattern works in the other direction too — you can lead with ahora and follow with antes:

• Ahora trabajo desde casa. Antes iba a la oficina cada día. – Now I work from home. I used to go to the office every day.

This is one of the most useful patterns in conversational Spanish. Spaniards build half their small talk on antes / ahora comparisons.

Describing How Things Were

The imperfecto isn't just for routines — it's also the tense for description in the past. The weather, what someone looked like, the mood of a place, how old you were — all imperfecto.

Use	Example	English
age	Tenía ocho años.	I was eight years old.
weather	Hacía mucho calor en agosto.	It was very hot in August.
time	Eran las tres de la tarde.	It was three in the afternoon.
feelings / state	Estaba cansada.	She was tired.
physical description	Era alto y delgado.	He was tall and thin.
location / setting	Había una iglesia al lado de la casa.	There was a church next to the house.

A few full-sentence descriptions:

• Mi abuela era muy alegre y siempre cantaba mientras cocinaba. – My grandmother was very cheerful and always sang while she cooked.
• El piso era pequeño pero luminoso. – The flat was small but bright.
• Hacía frío y llovía. – It was cold and it was raining.
• Eran las nueve y todavía estaba en el bar. – It was nine o'clock and I was still at the bar.

Soler + Infinitivo (Recognise It, Don't Force It)

Spaniards often replace solía + infinitivo for "used to":

• Solíamos ir al pueblo cada verano. – We used to go to the village every summer.
• Mi padre solía cocinar los sábados. – My father used to cook on Saturdays.

This is a recognition aid for now. Solía is just the imperfecto of the verb soler (to tend to / to do habitually). The endings are regular -er: solía, solías, solía, solíamos, solíais, solían. You don't need to use this construction yet — plain imperfecto works in every case soler does. But recognise it when you hear it, because it's all over Spanish memoir writing.

Practice

Words to Remember

Spanish	English
antes	before, in the past
ahora	now
siempre	always
nunca	never
de pequeño / pequeña	as a child
todos los días	every day
todos los veranos	every summer
cada domingo	every Sunday
los sábados	on Saturdays
a menudo	often
normalmente	usually
antiguamente	in the old days
solía	I used to
solíamos	we used to
jugaba al fútbol	I used to play football
veíamos la tele	we used to watch TV
iba al colegio andando	I used to walk to school
mi infancia	my childhood
mi adolescencia	my teenage years
era otra época	it was another era

Conversation

The neighbourhood

Carlos: Antes había una panadería en cada esquina. Before, there was a bakery on every corner.

Lucía: Sí, ahora hay más cafeterías. Yes, now there are more cafés.

Carlos: Era otra época. It was another era.

Habits that changed

Lucía: Antes fumaba mucho. Ahora no fumo nada. I used to smoke a lot. Now I don't smoke at all.

Carlos: Yo antes jugaba al fútbol. Ahora juego al pádel. I used to play football. Now I play padel.

Lucía: Cambian los tiempos. Times change.

Childhood routines

Carlos: De pequeño volvía a casa solo del cole. As a kid I used to walk home alone from school.

Lucía: Yo también. Los niños jugaban en la plaza hasta tarde. Me too. Kids used to play in the square until late.

Carlos: Ahora casi no se ven. Now you barely see them.