I’ve learned from studying spanish that usually the preterite of a verb is used with “ayer”. Are there any exceptions?
Well, “ayer” means yesterday. So yeah, if you are talking about yesterday, you would be using the preterite. Exceptions? I’m not quite sure you mean by this. You can use the preterite and talk about something you did/that happened last year (el ano pasado), last week (la semana pasada), one time (una vez), one day (un día) on Monday (el lunes). My guess is that you’re a beginner, and that you know that the preterite is used to talk about a single event in the past. The other past tense in Spanish is the imperfect, which is used when describing a repeated or habitual action in the past.
Sorry, I’ll clarify my question. I know that the preterite is used in many other cases. Would the imperfect ever be used with “ayer” for any reason? Or does “ayer” always require the preterite?
“Ayer iba a mi trabajo cuando de repente un idiota me choquo.”
Some verbs are almost always used in the imperfect, even though you might think they should be preterite. For example:
“Ayer sabia que me iban a matar.” Yesterday I knew (was knowing) that they were going to kill me.
“Ayer supe que me iban a matar.” Yesterday I found out that they were going to kill me.
In addition to pluperfect, which corresponds to English past perfect – an event that happened before another past event, Spanish uses three tenses for variations on past action.
The imperfect refers to continuous, repetitive, or habitual action, and is equivalent to English past progressive.
The perfect refers to action which continued to a definite stopping point, which may be the present, and is equivalent to English present perfect.
The preterite refers to a discrete action or actions at one or more points in the past, and is normally translated by English simple past.
Using “to eat,” sample sentences contrasting the usage.
Pluperfect: I had already eaten when Harry called.
Imperfect: I ate pizza every chance I got in my teens. I was eating a slice of pizza when you posted the OP.
Perfect: I have eaten that restaurant’s special every year on my birthday. or I have eaten already. Have you?
Preterite: I ate anchovies on my pizza last Saturday. Never again!!
Notice that “yesterday” could be intruded in any of those sentences (except the first example for Perfect, where context makes it senseless). In general, you will be speaking of a single past event that happened yesterday, and be using the Preterite. But you could also structure sentences in any of the other three tenses referring to an ongoing action, an action that continued to a particular stopping point, or an action before another action, all of which happened yesterday.
Any word or phrase that carries a past meaning like “hace dos días” or “la semana pasada” or “anteayer” can go with the preterite.
A simple time expression such as “ayer” or “la semana pasada” can take different tenses depending on the nature of the action, as other posters have mentioned.
Certain expressions do tend to take a particular tense: “de repente (suddenly)” takes preterite, “muchas veces (often)” would take the imperfect, although one could construct exceptions to these rules.
The important thing is the nature of the action described.
Diclaimer: Not a native speaker of Spanish