Presente
What is happening now, habits, and general truths.
- yo me entretengo
- tú te entretienes
- él / ella / usted se entretiene
- nosotros / nosotras nos entretenemos
- ellos / ellas / ustedes se entretienen
to entertain oneself
Irregular verb, gerund entreteniéndose, past participle entretenido.
Conjugated like obtener, sostener, tener, mantener, detener, contener
Underlined: the stem is not the infinitive’s.
Enough to talk about the present, the past, and the future.
What is happening now, habits, and general truths.
The everyday past for a finished action.
The spoken future for plans and near events: ir a plus the infinitive.
Past habits, descriptions, and ongoing background.
What is happening right now: estar plus the gerund.
A past still linked to now: experiences and what has happened so far.
What will happen later, and guesses about the present.
Polite requests, wishes, and hypotheses: “would …”.
Orders, advice, and instructions. The subject in parentheses is not spoken.
After wishes, doubts, feelings, and phrases like para que or ojalá.
Telling someone not to do something: no plus the present subjunctive.
A past action completed before another past action.
Hypotheses with si, polite wishes like quisiera, and the subjunctive in the past.
Subjunctive for an action already completed.
Regrets and hypotheses about the past: si hubiera sabido…
What would have happened: “would have …”.
An action finished before a future moment, or a guess about the past.
The -se forms of the past subjunctive, more formal and written.
The same tense with hubiese, more formal and written.
A literary action completed just before another past action.
An old subjunctive, kept in laws and set phrases.
An old compound subjunctive, kept in legal texts.