Impersonal forms of verbs in Spanish always have a different meaning and usage than the original verb.
For example, hacer means “to do” or “make”, but its impersonal form hace is used to talk about weather and periods of time.
Keep reading and learn more about it!
How to use “hace” to talk about time
You use hace before a time expression in a sentence in the past tense to say the period of time passed after an action happened.
It is like “ago” in English.
Llegué hace tres días.
I arrived three days ago.
Nos casamos hace un año.
We got married a year ago.
Luis no llamó hace una semana.
Luis didn’t call a week ago.
Also, hace helps to say the duration of action.
Hace in this case can´t be translated directly.
You have to understand the sentences with hace and verbs in the present tense as the duration of action since it started to the present.
In English, you use the present perfect and “for” to express that.
¿Hace mucho que espera? Hace una hora.
For how long have you waited? For an hour.
Trabajo aquí hace 3 años.
I have worked here for three years.
When the time expression comes before the verb it’s necessary to use que to link them.
Hace tiempo que no te veo.
It has been a long time since we met (without seeing you).
Hace meses que no hablamos.
We have not talked for months.
Practice this topic with these beginner exercises. It could be helpful.
“Hacer” for weather conditions
When you use hacer to express weather conditions you can use it in all verb tenses.
It’s equivalent to “it” in the expressions like “it’s cold”.
Hace frío.
It’s cold.
Hace calor.
It’s hot.
Hace sol, Está haciendo sol.
It’s sunny.
Hace buen tiempo.
The weather is good today.
¿Hace mucho viento?
Is it windy?
Hace mucho viento.
It’s windy.
Also, do not use hace with niebla “fog” say hay niebla.
For nublado “cloudy” use está nublado.
Finally, for rain and snow use the verb llover and nevar like in hoy llueve “it is rainy today”.
Conjugate impersonal form of “hacer”
Remember that when you use hacer with time expressions, you only use hace or hacía. But with weather expressions, you can use all the tenses.
- Here you have the most common conjugations:
Hacer:
Present:
Hace.
Indefinite past:
Hizo.
Imperfect past:
Hacía.
Future:
Hará.
Present perfect:
Ha hecho.
Subjunctive:
Que haga.
Verb “hacer”
Hacer is an irregular verb and in both of its forms, it has important spelling changes.
It could be a good idea to check the normal conjugation of hacer, so now you know the use of the verb hacer, keep learning!