Telling How Long Something Has Been Happening or How Long Ago Something Happened Hace

1
Telling How Long Something Has Been Happening or
How Long Ago Something HappenedHace que
Another use of hacer (Part 1)
33

• Hace period of time que present tense
  expresses an action that has been going on over a
  period of time and is still going on.

Hace dos horas que leo.Ive been reading for two
hours. Hace tres años que vivimos en esta
casa.Weve been living in this house for three
years.

• Cuánto tiempo hace que? expresses how long
  something has been going on.

Cuánto tiempo hace que vives en esta
residencia?How long have you been living in this
dorm?
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Telling How Long Something Has Been Happening or
How Long Ago Something HappenedHaceque Another
use of hacer (Part 2)
33

• To say how long ago something happened, use the
  same hace que construction but with the
  preterite tense instead of the present. Omit que
  when the hace phrase does not come at the
  beginning of the sentence.

Hace tres años que fui a Bogotá.I went to Bogotá
three years ago. Fui a Cancún hace un mes.I went
to Cancún a month ago.
The verb form hace in this impersonal
construction never varies. However, the verb that
accompanies the expression is always conjugated.
OJO
3
Expressing Unplanned or Unexpected EventsAnother
Use of se
34

• (a Noun or Indirect Object Pronoun)
  se Pronoun Verb Subject

(A mí) Se me
cayó la taza de café. (A tí)
Se te perdió
la cartera? A Antonio se le
olvidaron los apuntes.
The subject of the verb is the thing that was
forgotten, lost, dropped, and so on. The verb
form agrees with this subject. A Julia se le
perdieron las llaves. (Subject the keys)
OJO