Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): El mes pasado descansamos en el parque.

In Spanish we usually put the definite article before expressions of time. In English you say “last month,” but in Spanish it’s literally “the month past” – el mes pasado. Omitting el would sound ungrammatical.

Why does the adjective pasado come after the noun mes, instead of before?

Spanish generally places adjectives after nouns. Time words like pasado, próximo, hoy, ayer often follow the noun they modify. So it’s mes pasado, not pasado mes.

How do I know descansamos is in the preterite (simple past) and not the present? Why isn’t there an accent to show the difference?

The form descansamos can indeed be either present (“we rest”) or preterite (“we rested”), because 1st-person-plural in both tenses ends in -amos and takes no accent. You rely on context and time markers – here el mes pasado clearly signals the completed action in the past, so it’s the preterite.

Why is the subject pronoun nosotros omitted before descansamos?

Spanish is a “pro-drop” language: verb endings usually identify the subject. Descansamos already indicates “we,” so adding nosotros is unnecessary unless you want to emphasize who did the resting.