Time Expressions with Hace
Time Expressions with Hace
English says 'for three years' or 'three years ago'. Spanish reuses hacer — the same 'to make' verb from your weather lesson — to express both ideas, in two subtly different sentence shapes.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Hace + time = 'ago'
hace tres años (three years ago) — literally 'it makes three years'
three years ago — no verb needed at all
To say how long ago something happened, Spanish places hace plus a time period before the rest of the sentence — hace tres años fui a España (three years ago, I went to Spain). English needs no verb here whatsoever, just the phrase itself, so remember that hace is doing real grammatical work, not just adding color.
Hace + time + que = 'for' (still ongoing)
hace tres años que vivo aquí (I've lived here for three years) — the action is still happening now
I've lived here for three years — built with the present perfect
When the action described is still ongoing, Spanish uses hace plus time plus que, paired with the present tense, not a perfect tense — hace tres años que vivo aquí literally reads as 'it makes three years that I live here'. English instead reaches for the present perfect ('I have lived') to mark this same ongoing-since-the-past idea, so don't expect the verb tense itself to carry over between the two languages here.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- three years ago
- English
- a week ago
- English
- a long time ago
- English
- I've lived here for three years
- English
- how long ago?
- English
- since
- English
- for two months (up to now)
- English
- a little while ago
- English
- I haven't seen him in years
- English
- still