Español en serio

The Spanish word “tiempo” and how to use it

Dieser Beitrag erklärt ein wichtiges Thema der spanischen Grammatik (Text auf Englisch).

👉 The basic meaning of this word is “time”:
At that time, I was a little girl. En aquel tiempo, yo era una niña pequeña.

👉 But we also use it to talk about the weather:
What’s the weather like? ¿Qué tiempo hace?
The weather is fine. Hace buen tiempo.

👉 And also, for the verbal tenses, we say tiempos verbales.

So, as you can see, we do not use “tiempo” and “time” in the same way. Remember: in many cases, one-to-one translation is the road to perdition.

The Spanish word “vez” and how to use it

In English, we use time to mean tiempo, but also in some compounds like three times, many times, sometimes. But in other languages, we have two different words. Take a look:

English: I don’t have time to speak now. Meaning time in the general sense.
Spanish: No tengo tiempo para hablar ahora.
French: Je n’ai pas le temps de parler maintenant.
German: Ich habe jetzt keine Zeit zum Sprechen.

You don’t need to know all these languages. Only notice that we use these words. And now, let’s see what happens with another phrase:

English: This is the first time I come here. Meaning time as occasion.
Spanish: Esta es la primera vez que vengo aquí.
French: C’est la première fois que je viens ici.
German: Das ist das erste Mal, dass ich hier bin.

As you can see, in English we use always time, but in other languages, including Spanish, we use two different words. So, we say things like:

la primera vez, the first time
la segunda vez, the second time
la última vez, the last time
muchas veces, many times
a veces, sometimes
etc.

Find all the time expressions with “vez” here:

8. Time expressions with the word ‘vez’

Example from the episode

Read the full episode here →

Episode 6