There are different ways to talk about the past in Spanish. The main two you will use are the imperfect and the preterit.
We use the imperfect to talk about
- things we used to do in the past (but don’t anymore)
- things that were happening at the moment (was + verb + ing)
- a description of something in the past (she was wearing a blue dress)
These are not the only examples, but they are the most common.
I played soccer when I was little | Yo jugaba al fútbol cuando era niña. |
I played soccer yesterday. | Yo jugué al fútbol ayer. |
Notice that the stem for play, jug, stays the same, but the ending is completely different. –aba is the imperfect ending, and it means I used to.