Spanish-grammar how do I determine what tense a sentence is?

Question

Example
El viejo _____ en el hospital.
The blank is supposed to be filled in with a versio of Morir.

Yo _____ ir a la playa. (preferir)

Answer 1

you determinate the tense by looking at the ending of the verb.
In your first example you could say:
El viejo murió en el hospital = the old man died in the hospital
El viejo morirá en el hospital = the old man will die in the hospital
etc.

In the second one:
Yo prefiero ir a la playa = i rather go to the beach
yo preferiría ir a la playa = i would rather go to beach
etc.

The verb will always tell you who is doing the action and when

morí = i died
moriré = i'll die
moriría = i'd die
muero = i die
etc.

If you have to determinate the verb according to the sentence you'd have check the context so you can choose the verb correctly. Same as in english:
If i say'd The old man _________ in the hostpital
you could put "died, have died, will die, is dying, etc."

Hope that helps ;)

Answer 2

Maybe if you read it in English you will undestand:

El viejo murió en el hospital. (past tense of to die)
The old man .... in the hospital. (to die)

Yo prefiero ir a la playa. (present tense)
I .... to go to the beach. (to prefer)

Answer 3

For determinate this, I need the context because I don't know if is past, future or present.

El viejo "murió" en el hospital. (past)
El viejo muere en el hospital (like present, but It's better El viejo está mueriendo en el hospital)
El viejo morirá en el hospital (future)


Yo "prefiero" ir a la playa.(present)
Yo preferí ir a la playa (past)
Yo preferiría ir a la playa (future)

Answer 4

Without a conjugated verb, a sentence does not have a tense (tense being expressed only in finite verbs).

Answer 5

?????????????????

Same as in English!!!

dies, died, had died, has died...

prefer, preferred, would prefer....