Learn Spanish (Latin America): El otro día llegamos tarde.

El otro día llegamos tarde.

The other day we arrived late.

Breakdown of El otro día llegamos tarde.

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Questions & Answers about El otro día llegamos tarde.

How do we know llegamos means "we arrived" instead of "we arrive"?

The verb form llegamos is exactly the same in both the present tense and the preterite (completed past) tense! You have to rely on context clues. Here, the phrase el otro día (the other day) makes it clear we are talking about a completed action in the past.

Why doesn't tarde change its ending to match the plural nosotros (we)?

In this sentence, tarde is used as an adverb meaning "late," describing when or how the action of arriving happened. Adverbs are invariable, meaning they never change their endings to match gender or number.

How does this simple past sentence relate to the past perfect tense we are learning?

Sentences in the preterite (like this one) often serve as the "anchor" for the past perfect. The past perfect tells us what happened before this anchor. For example, you could expand this sentence to say: El otro día llegamos tarde porque el tren se había retrasado (The other day we arrived late because the train had been delayed).

Is el otro día a common trigger for the preterite tense?

Yes! Phrases like el otro día (the other day), ayer (yesterday), or la semana pasada (last week) usually trigger the preterite rather than the imperfect. They frame the action as a single, completed event in a specific past timeframe.