This is less complete than Luisa's excellent answer, but it always helps to simplify the matter until one's fluency improves. For most communication needs: Use "había" for "There was/were" If you can replace "was/were" with "took place", use "Hubo" Examples: There were a lot of people in the square today. - Había mucha gente en la plaza hoy. There was (took place) an explosion today. - Hubo una explosión hoy.

First of all, sorry for my English. I'll do my best. BOTH sentences are right. Verb "haber" means that something exist in a place. There isn't any action, so in both cases you can use Pretérito Imperfecto "había". There isn't any ongoing action in that verb, just a description. In other hand, it's also possible to use "hubo", Pretérito Indefinido, but not in those examples. The Pretérito Indefinido of "haber" is very seldom used, almost always not in colloquial register. It's used to evoke a time when something existed before, but not in that moment anymore.

Hi John! I think that the best way to establish the difference between HUBO y HABÍA, or any other verb for that matter used in these tenses, is to understand some basic grammar and apply the corresponding usage rules ;) Don’t forget, though, that in the end it will always depend upon what you actually want to communicate. There are many case scenarios where both can be used. I’ll try to explain: HUBO (Pretérito) is the preterit(e) tense/form of HABER. HABÍA (Imperfecto) is the past imperfect form of HABER. Both of these tenses of the verb HABER talk about situations in the past. Don’t forget that in English we only have one past (Simple past) and if we want to change its connotation, we use modal words like: should, would, may, etc. These words do not exist in most cases in Spanish; they are included in the verb e.g. I will go - Iré (In Spanish we don’t even have to specify the subject; it’s included in the verb form) Remember that we use the preterit(e) (HUBO) to talk about past actions or situations that happened (took place) at a concrete moment in the past. In your sample sentence, you are using the complement of time “Yesterday” and you are just stating what happened at a concrete moment in the past. Yesterday, THERE WAS a dog in the park. Ayer, HUBO un perro en el parque. On the other hand, the imperfect past tense (HABÍA) is used, among others: (1) to talk about an ongoing action or situation in the past or (2) to refer to circumstances affecting or involving a past event. If we use the former sample sentence: Yesterday, THERE WAS a dog in the park (while I was taking a walk). Ayer, HABÍA un perro en el parque (mientras tomaba un paseo). [Ongoing action(s) or circumstance(s) involved in a past event] Hope this was helpful ;)

La primera hubo La segunda habia Para explicar el hubo te dire que es algo que habia pero ya no esta mas como dices tu: Hubo un presidente que se llamo Jose Lopez Portillo que saqueo mi país Hubo un marinero en la familia, era mi tio abuelo Hubo una escuela que se callo en el terremoto Hubo muchisima fila el día de las votaciones Hubo un asalto el día que pedi permiso en mi trabajo Aun asi es un verbo que casi no se usa, ya que puedes suplir todos por el habia, pero bueno espero haberte ayudado y sobretodo haber me explicado. Saludos.

Thanks.