To be able to speak with people we need to know basically present tense, future and past. With this at least we give our Spanish speaking friends an idea what we are talking about. We will therefor concentrate on imperfect in this coarse. It is fully explained on internet but we use it because it is perhaps the easiest form. 

The verbs form past like this

In Spanish, the imperfect can be called the imperfecto or the copretérito. Conjugation of the imperfect indicative:

hablar        comer           vivir         ir           ser        ver 

hablaba        comía        vivía        iba        era        veía
hablabas      comías      vivías      ibas       eras      veías
hablaba        comía        vivía        iba        era        veía
hablábamos comíamos vivíamos íbamos éramos veíamos
hablabais     comíais      vivíais     ibais      erais      veíais
hablaban     comían       vivían      iban      eran       veían

In English we have simple past when it is an action in the past. We use present perfect if it is not a clear if the sentence is finished or not.. 

In Spain we form past different. In Spanish it depend on if the past is very far away in time or not. 

The past we present here is a past not to far away.

Ayer  Yesterday      La semana pasada   Last week     Hace una hora   An hour ago

Good luck!  If you do the coarse on your own or in your way I would recommend you to contact some spanish friends on media channels and present yourself and tell them you are just learning spanish. This can be an excellent way to learn a new language and who knows they might what to improve their English skills as well / Saludos Hannika