Había - There was or there were.

Wednesday, 14 September 2011 10:28

Written by Editor

We have looked at various uses of Hay (there is, there are), hay que (you have to)
and habrá (there will be) in the last two articles.  Now we are going to look at how to
go into the past tense to say There was and there were.

Basically the word to use is había.
Había mucha gente en la playa hoy.  -  There were a lot of people on the beach today.
Había un incendio muy, muy grande en la montaña esta semana.  -  There
was a very, very big fire in the mountains this week.

(Perhaps you know the trick of adding ísimo/ísima to words to make them very, very)
So muy,muy grande,  very, very big  becomes grandísimo or grandísima
Muy, muy rápido/rápida  becomes rapidísimo/rapidísima
Muy, muy guapo/guapa becomes guapísimo/guapísima

We could have said Había un incendio grandisímo en la montaña.
Había muchos helicópteros con bolsas de agua.  -  There were lots of helicopters with bags of water.
Había muchos aviones también.  -  There were lots of planes too.
Gracias a Dios, no había muertos  -  Thanks be to God, there were no fatalities.

And similar to hay que - one has to, we can use había que  -  one had to
Había que evacuar a más de trescientas personas  -   More than three hundred people had to be evacuated.
Había que ver las llamas  -  You had to see the flames.
Había que rescatar a una pareja mayor  -  An elderly couple had to be rescued.

And that's the excitement in this neck of the woods for now!

Hasta la próxima - Until next time.
Valerie.

Valerie runs the Centro Idiomas Language School in Coin.
Her books, “The First Twelve Shortcuts to Spanish” , “The Second Twelve Shortcuts to Spanish”   & “The Third Twelve Shortcuts to Spanish” (€5 each) and  “The Verb Book” (€7) are available from The News office in Coin, Woody’s Cards and Books in Los Boliches, David’s Books in Los Boliches or by email from This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Valerie's books can also now be bought from her website - www.cslspain.com or call 952 450 747.