Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Los vecinos vieron el humo y fueron al refugio más cercano. - The neighbors saw the smoke and went to the nearest shelter.

vieron = preterite (pretérito indefinido), completed action:
- Los vecinos vieron el humo.
  The neighbors saw the smoke (at a specific moment; action is complete).
veían = imperfect (pretérito imperfecto), ongoing/repeated action or background:
- Los vecinos veían el humo todos los días.
  The neighbors used to see / were seeing the smoke every day.

In the sentence, the idea is a specific event in a narrative (they saw it once, at some point), so Spanish uses vieron.

What person and tense are vieron and fueron?

Both verbs are:

3rd person plural (they)
Preterite (pretérito indefinido), the simple past used for completed events.

So:

vieron = they saw
fueron = they went

Spanish doesn’t need the subject pronoun ellos here, because los vecinos already tells you who is doing the action. Adding ellos (Los vecinos ellos vieron…) would usually sound wrong or at least redundant.

Why is the verb ver used instead of mirar?

Spanish distinguishes:

ver = to see (to perceive with the eyes, not necessarily on purpose)
mirar = to look at (to direct your eyes intentionally)

Los vecinos vieron el humo suggests they noticed the smoke; they perceived it.
If you said miraron el humo, it would sound more like they stared at the smoke, or deliberately looked at it.

For noticing something like smoke, ver is the natural verb.

What’s the difference between vecinos, vecinas, and los vecinos y las vecinas?

los vecinos
Grammatically masculine plural; usually used for:
- a group of only men, or
- a mixed group of men and women, or
- neighbors in general (gender not specified).
las vecinas
Only female neighbors.
los vecinos y las vecinas
Explicitly mentions both male and female neighbors; sometimes used for inclusive or emphatic language (often in speeches, announcements, etc.).

In everyday speech, los vecinos is the normal, default way to refer to all the neighbors as a group.

Why is it el humo and not just humo or un humo?

Spanish uses definite articles more than English.

el humo = the (specific) smoke.
There is a particular smoke they saw (for example, from a fire nearby).
Just humo (no article) would be unusual here. It might appear in set phrases like:
- Hay humo. – There is smoke.
un humo is normally not used; humo is usually uncountable. You’d say mucho humo, una columna de humo (a column of smoke), etc., not un humo.

In this context, el humo fits because it refers to a specific cloud/signal of smoke that the neighbors saw.

What verb is fueron from, and how do I know if it means “went” or “were”?

Fueron is the preterite of both:

ser (to be)
ir (to go)

They share the same forms in the preterite.

You know which one it is from context and structure:

With ir (to go), it’s followed by a
- place:
- Fueron al refugio. – They went to the shelter.
With ser (to be), it describes what something was:
- Fueron muy amables. – They were very kind.
- Fueron las mejores vacaciones. – They were the best holidays.

In fueron al refugio, it can only be ir = “went”, because ser doesn’t take a + place like that in Spanish.

Why is it al refugio and not a el refugio?

Spanish always contracts a + el (the masculine singular article) into al when el is a normal article before a noun:

a + el refugio → al refugio
a + el parque → al parque

You must use the contraction al in this case; a el refugio is considered incorrect in standard Spanish.

The only time you don’t contract is when el is not an article but part of a name or a pronoun, for example:

Voy a El Corte Inglés. (store name, no contraction)
Se lo di a él. (to him, pronoun, no contraction)

Could I say fueron para el refugio instead of fueron al refugio?

Normally, no. With ir, the most natural preposition for a destination is a:

fueron al refugio – they went to the shelter.

para can sometimes appear with verbs of movement, but it focuses on purpose rather than simple destination and often sounds more like “headed for” or “set off for”. Still, in this sentence fueron para el refugio would sound odd or regionally marked.

For standard usage (including in Spain), use:

ir a
- place → fueron al refugio.

Why does más cercano come after refugio and not before it?

In Spanish, most adjectives go after the noun:

un refugio cercano – a nearby shelter
el refugio más cercano – the nearest shelter

Putting más cercano before (el más cercano refugio) is not natural Spanish.

There are some adjectives that commonly go before the noun (bueno, mal, gran, nuevo, viejo, etc.), and some can go either before or after with a slight meaning change. But with cercano (“near/close”), the usual, neutral position is after the noun.

Why is it más cercano and not más cerca?

cercano is an adjective (close, nearby), used to describe a noun:
- un refugio cercano – a nearby shelter
- el refugio más cercano – the closest/nearest shelter
cerca is an adverb (near, close), used to describe a verb or be part of expressions:
- El refugio está cerca. – The shelter is nearby.
- El refugio está más cerca. – The shelter is closer.

Since we are describing the refugio (a noun), we need the adjective cercano, not the adverb cerca:

el refugio más cercano, not el refugio más cerca.

In Spain, would people also say han visto el humo y han ido al refugio instead of vieron… fueron…?

Both exist, but they are used differently.

In Spain:

vieron el humo y fueron al refugio (preterite)
- Used for completed past events, often in narratives, stories, news reports, when the time is seen as a finished block.
han visto el humo y han ido al refugio (pretérito perfecto)
- Often used for past actions that are connected to the present or are within the “current time frame” (today, this morning, recently), especially in spoken Peninsular Spanish:
  - Hoy han visto el humo y han ido al refugio.

In a neutral, story-telling sentence with no explicit connection to “today/this week, etc.”, vieron… fueron… is the more typical narrative choice.

How is humo pronounced, and is the h really silent?

Yes, the h in Spanish is silent.

humo is pronounced like [ú-mo] (approx. OO-mo in English).
The stress is on the first syllable: HU-mo.

Other examples:

hombre → [ÓM-bre]
hablar → [a-BLAR]

You never pronounce the h at the start of standard Spanish words (except in some words borrowed from other languages and in certain regional accents).

What exactly does refugio mean here? Is it only an emergency shelter?

Refugio is a general word meaning shelter, refuge, place of protection. Its exact meaning depends on context:

Emergency context: refugio = shelter or safe place (e.g., civil defense shelter, bomb shelter, emergency shelter).
Mountain context: refugio de montaña / refugio = mountain hut or lodge for hikers/climbers.
General: a place of protection or safety:
- refugio de animales – animal shelter
- un refugio contra la lluvia – a shelter from the rain

In fueron al refugio más cercano, the most natural interpretation is an emergency or safe shelter, given that there is humo (smoke).