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Hacer in time and weather expressions
- In Spanish the English word "ago" is expressed with hace +
a period of time. Notice the two different syntactical
arrangements in the following two sentences, the only real
difference being the addition of the conjunction que in the
second example. Either order is equally acceptable.
- Llegué a México hace dos meses. (I arrived in Mexico two months ago.)
- Hace cinco minutos que llegó a la
reunión. (He got to the meeting five minutes
ago.)
- When something has been going on for a period of time
and is continuing, such as I have been studying Spanish
for two hours (or, It makes two hours that I have been
studying Spanish,) the following construction is used:
hace + a period of time + que + a verb in the present
tense.
- Hace dos meses que estoy aquí.* (I have been here for two months.)
- Hace un año que vivo allí.*
(I have lived there for a year.)
*There is also an inverted form of these expressions, which can be expressed using the expression desde hace: Estoy aquí desde hace dos meses and Vivo allí desde hace un año.
- When something had been going on for a period of time
and was continuing until something else happened, such as
I had been studying Spanish for two hours until the party
began, a construction similar to the previous one is used,
although in this case the imperfect indicative must be used in
both verbs.
- Hacía dos meses que estaba aquí...* (I had been here for two months...)
- Hacía un año que vivía
allí...* (I had lived there for a year...)
*As above, there is also an inverted form of these expressions, which can be expressed using the expression desde hacía: Estaba aquí desde hacía dos meses and Vivía allí desde hacía un año.
To describe weather conditions that one sees, one uses
hay + the weather
phenomenon. Otherwise, one uses hace
+ the weather phenomenon.
- Hace calor hoy. (It's hot today.)
- Ayer hacía frío. (Yesterday it was cold.)
- Hace mucho viento en Chicago. (It's very
windy in Chicago.)
Related topics:
Hacer, irregular verb
Hay with weather
conditions
Tener to express
person conditions
Verbs
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