soler
/soˈleɾ/
To say used to in Spanish, for something you did regularly in the past, use soler in the past tense, followed by an infinitive.
soler expresses habits, things someone tends to do or used to do regularly.
Meaning: accustomed to (adj)
Which one should you use?
English used to also means being accustomed to something. soler only covers habitual actions, not the state of being accustomed to a situation.
How does it change in a sentence?
For past habits, use the imperfect form solía. For present habits, use suele, which means usually or tends to. soler is almost always followed directly by an infinitive.
How do you pronounce it?
soler is pronounced /soˈleɾ/, with the stress on the last syllable and a tapped r at the end.
Did you know?
- In some dialects, the use of soler is replaced entirely by the imperfect tense alone. For example, comía can mean both 'I was eating' and 'I used to eat', making solía comer optional for emphasis.
- The word soler is a linguistic relative of the Italian solere and the Catalan soler. It is also found in Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews.
- The verb soler is almost never used in the future or conditional tenses. You will rarely hear a speaker say they 'will tend to' do something in the future using this specific verb.
Examples in context
- Aquí solía estar la tele.This is where the television used to be.solía estar describes where the television was in the past.
- Solíamos salir de fiesta todos los viernes, pero ahora somos más tranquilos.We used to go partying every Friday, but now we're more relaxed.
- Antes solía jugar videojuegos todo el día, pero ahora me aburren un poco.I used to play video games all day, but now they bore me a bit.
- Cuando éramos jóvenes, siempre comíamos pizza los viernes.When we were young, we always used to eat pizza on Fridays.
Sources
- Pronunciation: Wiktionary entry soler, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries soler, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Wiktionary CC BY-SA 4.0.
