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Thursday January 14, 2010

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hacer, verb:
a year ago

Apart from using hacer to mean to make or to do, you can use it to state how long ago something happened. To do that you use the form hace and the past tense of the verb — the ‘preterite’:

Lo vi hace un mes.
I saw him a month ago.

Hace poco means recently, or just now.

Se fue hace poco.
He left a few moments ago.

When you want to say how long you’ve been doing something, you use hace and the present tense of the verb:

Hace un mes que voy.
I’ve been going for a month.

You often use the phrase hace mucho in questions:

¿Hace mucho que esperas?
Have you been waiting long?

¿Hace mucho que ustedes se conocen?
Have you known each other long?