Hace + Time
Hace y hacía con tiempo
The hacer time formulas: hace dos años que vivo aquí (for), llegamos hace una hora (ago), hacía meses que no salíamos (had been), desde hace.
The rule
Spanish measures time with hacer, and the formula changes meaning with the tense around it. HACE + time + QUE + PRESENT = how long something has been true and still is: 'Hace dos años que vivimos aquí' (we have lived here for two years). English says "have lived"; Spanish uses the simple present, never the perfect. Flip the order with desde hace: 'Vivimos aquí desde hace dos años.' Watch the desde split: DESDE takes a point in time ('desde enero', 'desde 2024'), DESDE HACE takes a duration ('desde hace dos años').
HACE + time WITHOUT que, next to a completed action, means "ago": 'Llegamos hace una hora.' Move the whole thing to the past and hace becomes HACÍA + time + QUE + IMPERFECT = had been: 'Hacía meses que no salíamos' (we hadn't been out in months). The question form is '¿Cuánto (tiempo) hace que...?': '¿Hace mucho que esperas?'. One spelling trap: hacía (accent) is the verb; hacia (no accent) is the preposition "towards", a different word said with different stress.
Examples
Hace dos años que vivimos en este barrio.
We've lived in this neighbourhood for two years. (hace + time + que + PRESENT)
Se despertó hace una hora.
He woke up an hour ago. (hace + time = ago, no que)
Hacía meses que no salíamos de noche.
We hadn't been out at night in months. (hacía + time + que + IMPERFECT)
Estudio español desde hace un año.
I've been learning Spanish for a year. (desde hace + duration)
¿Hace mucho que esperas?
Have you been waiting long? (the how-long question)
Try it yourself
Three quick questions, straight from the app. No sign-up needed.
___ dos años que vivimos en este barrio.
We've lived in this neighbourhood for two years.
All 15 Hace + Time questions, free in Hablaba
Hablaba spots this exact rule in your real conversations and points you back to the quiz for it. The drills feed the speaking, which is the point of the whole app.
Keep going
Get one new rule like this each week: