Today we will learn how to use the Spanish verb soler. If you do not know yet how to talk about routine and habits in Spanish, take a look at this post. Our Spanish school, El Rincón del Tándem, will provide you with a short useful explanation. 😊
The Spanish verb soler is one of those essentials Spanish verbs that every student must absolutely know when starting taking Spanish lessons and having basic conversation.
It is commonly used to talk about people’s habits, routines and actions that happens regularly.
When translating from Spanish into English, we can use the adverbs “generally”, “usually” or “normally” in order to convey the meaning of soler.
When referring to usual activities and customary practices, it can be translated into English as “tend to” or” be accustomed to”.
Examples:
- En Alemania la gente suele empezar a trabajar muy pronto por la mañana = In Germany, people usually start working very early in the morning
- Por las noches suelo cenar algo ligero = In the evening I normally have a light dinner
- Pilar suele ir a la playa los domingos por la mañana = Pilar tends to go to the beach on Sunday mornings
- Suelo tomar un café después de la comida = I tend to have a coffe after lunch
Besides speaking about routines, the verb soler is also used to indicate actions or events that usually happens.
Examples:
- En Irlanda suele llover mucho todo el año = In Ireland, it usually rains a lot all year round
- La Tomatina suele celebrarse en agosto = Tomatina is normally celebrated in August
If we want to describe habitual actions that used to happen in the past (and no longer in the present), we use the imperfect tense. The English equivalent would be “used to”.
Examples:
- Cuando era niña, solía ir a pescar con mi abuelo = When I was a child, I used to go fishing with my grandfather
- Cuando vivía en Lisboa solía ir al teatro cada viernes = When I lived in Lisbon, I used to go to the theatre every Friday.
IMPORTANT!
– SOLER works as an auxiliar verb, thus it must be always followed by the infinitive verb
– SOLER is a defective verb; that is a verb with an incomplete conjugation, that cannot be used in in certain moods, aspects and tens. For instance, we cannot use soler in past simple tense, conditional tense and future tense.
Therefore, we will only find this verb in the present and past imperfect (indicative) tense as they are the ones, we use to describe habitual actions in Spanish.
Please, find below the conjugations of the verb soler that you will use in Spanish:
Indicative Present: YO suelo – TÚ sueles – ÉL/ELLA suele – NOSOTROS/AS solemos – VOSOTROAS/AS soléis – ELLOS/ELLAS suelen
Indicative past imperfect: YO solía – TÚ solías – ÉL/ELLA solía – NOSOTROS/AS solíamos – VOSOTROS/VOSOTRAS solíais – ELLOS/ELLAS solían.
We hope you enjoyed our explanation of the Spanish verb soler.
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¡Hasta pronto!
