The Preterit Tense in Spanish

PreteritLet’s Conjugate: Regular –AR verbs

Let’s first review the present indicative endings of regular -AR, -ER & -IR verbs:

Here are regular -AR, -ER & -IR verbs, conjugated in the present indicative: (hablar, comer, vivir)

We can see that the -AR verbs typically have an a pattern in the new endings, and the -IR verbs follow a conjugation pattern very similar to -ER, having an e pattern in the boot endings. These two endings follow similar patterns in almost every tense. They’re besties!

Hablo Hablamos

Hablas Habláis

Habla Hablan

-o -amos

-as -áis

-a -an

Como Comemos

Comes Coméis

Come Comen

Vivo Vivimos

Vives Vivís

Vive Viven

-o -emos

-es -éis

-e -en

-o -imos

-es -ís

-e -en

The shaded area looks like a sneaker!(Yes it does!)

PreteritLet´s conjugate: Regular -AR verbs

The new preterit endings of regular –AR verbs:

Notice that there is an a in each of the new endings, except for in the first- and third-person singular. Just like in the present indicative, this makes it easy to convince ourselves that this is the conjugation for regular –AR verbs.

-é -amos

-aste -asteis

-ó -aron

Hablé Hablamos

Hablaste Hablasteis

Habló Hablaron

-é -amos

-aste -asteis

-ó -aron

The first- and third-person singular are also different in that they must carry a written accent in regular verb conjugations

See how that kinda looks like a sideways middle finger? I call these the “pain in the ARse” verbs because suddenly, outside of the middle finger, there is an é and an ó, and it’s just like, WHY?!Remember that.

PreteritLet’s conjugate: Regular -ER/-IR verbs

The new preterit endings of regular -ER & -IR verbs -ER -IR

Much as they were similar in the present tense, these two verb endings like to hang out together, and have now become identical. *Twinsies!*

Here are the same two regular verbs, conjugated in the preterit:

-í -imos

-iste -isteis

-ió -ieron

-í -imos

-iste -isteis

-ió -ieron

Comí Comimos

Comiste Comisteis

Comió Comieron

Viví Vivimos

Viviste Vivisteis

Vivió Vivieron

Sometimes we must interpret the preterit in Spanish a little differently than we would in English, because in certain situations we form the preterit in English using auxiliary verbs (most typically with negative sentences and interrogatives). In these examples, did is the auxiliary verb.

- ¿Escribiste esa carta? (Did you write that letter?)

- No, no la escribí. (No, I did not write it)

- ¿Hablaste conmigo anoche? ¿Qué dije?(Did you talk to me last night? What did I say?)

- ¿Te olvidaste ya?(Did you forget already?)

- Estaba* borracho.(I was drunk.) (*More about the imperfect later)

An interrogative is a fancy word for question. You’re welcome.

The nightmare PreteritRemember how I kept saying “regular” earlier?

Yeah…

Let’s talk about irregular preterit verbs. There are so many, and so many different kinds of irregularities, that the preterit is often a nightmare for students trying to learn Spanish. I am not here to disagree with that sentiment. I’m just telling you, you’re not alone.

We are just going to take this one step at a time, as if you were a recovering meth addict student trying to learn Spanish. Except there are probably like 47 steps instead of 12.

Deal?

Let’s pause to talk about soundsBefore we go on the mad journey that is irregular preterit, it will be helpful for you to know which consonant and vowel combinations make which sounds. There are only two consonants that we need to talk about with regard to the preterit, and how they change sounds with vowels: C and G.

So that we don’t go down the rabbit hole of Spanish phonetics, I’m going to use some made-up symbols to explain this. Let’s just wing it here. If you see (G) think g as in girl (not g as in giant). This is the “hard” G. (We don’t want no weak G’s, yo!) We will go in alphabetical order of vowels:

ca= calle (KA)ce= cero (SE)ci= cinco (SI)co= corto (KO)

ga= garganta (GA)ge= gente (HE)gi= gigante (HI)go= gordo (GO)

que= querer (KE) – not KWEqui= quinta (KI) – not KWI

gue= guerra (GE) – not GWEgui= guitarra (GI) – not GWI

For more information on Spanish phonetics, click here. This is an awesome resource provided free from the University of Iowa. They rock.

Step 1: The ones that stem-changeHere’s a little bit of good news: Only -IR verbs with stem changes in

the present tense can stem-change in the preterit. And even then, they can only stem-change in the third person (singular and plural) and only one letter (either e:i or o:u). I know that sounds like a whole lot of qualifiers, so let’s do some together.

First, here’s an example: Morir

Present Indicative (o:ue) Preterit (o:u)

Morí Morimos

Moriste Moristeis

Murió Murieron

Muero Morimos

Mueres Morís

Muere Mueren

Present tense stem-changes only occur in the boot. Preterit stem-changes only happen in the sandal (3rd person singular). -If you’re laughing at the sandal yes, I may have made that up. It’s from the side view. Let’s just pretend like you can see it, ok?

Does it stem-change in the preterit?

Does it stem-change in present tense?

yes

Does it end in -IR?

yes

Then it stem-changes in the preterit.

Remember:1. They only stem-change in the

sandal.(the third-person)

2. They only change one letter. (either e:i or o:u)

The ones that end in -car, -gar, -zar

I bet now you can tell where I was going with that mini phonetics lesson!

Let’s pick a verb that ends in -car and try to apply what we know about preterit conjugations to the 1st person singular (aka- the Yo form). Let’s pick TocarWell, we have this:

But from what we just learned, the infinitive definitely has a (K) sound in -car, right? The rule is, we need to try to retain that hard consonant when we conjugate. But if we: then we know it makes a (S) sound. So how do we fix it?

Easy: BOOM. Now we have the (K) sound and the proper ending.

Just apply the same reasoning for all the -car, -gar, -zar verb endings and you will be fine. Remember, the only conjugation you need to do this for is the YO form. It is the only one that will change the sound of the consonant.

-é -amos

-aste -asteis

-ó -aron

Tocé

Toqué

By the way, this is also called an orthographic, or spelling change. It only needs a change in written Spanish (and this one, only in the first person singular).

More examples of orthographic changes in the YO form

I was just going to move on, but I will show you some full examples in the conjugation chart for all my visual learners:

-car: Buscar (to look for)

-gar: Jugar (to play)

Busqué Buscamos

Buscaste Buscasteis

Buscó Buscaron

Jugué Jugamos

Jugaste Jugasteis

Jugó Jugaron

Orthographic changes in the third person

Verbs that end up with an unaccented i between two vowels when conjugated in the third-person singular and plural must have a spelling change just so they don’t look crazy. The i must change to a y.

Leer (incorrect) Leer (corrected)

*Note the use of accent marks in all forms except the third-persons.

Leí Leímos

Leíste Leísteis

Leió Leieron

This looks too weird, even for Spanish.

Leí Leímos

Leíste Leísteis

Leyó Leyeron

Short verbs: Ser/Ir, Dar, Ver

Although they follow the same conjugation patterns, they are irregular and must be memorized.

Ser/Ir* Dar Ver

Note that none of these carry a written accent. You can think of them as so irregular that they don’t even have to be marked.

*Ser and Ir are identical conjugations, but don’t freak out! You will be able to easily tell them apart in a sentence by the context.

Di Dimos

Diste Disteis

Dio Dieron

Fui Fuimos

Fuiste Fuisteis

Fue Fueron

Vi Vimos

Viste Visteis

Vio Vieron

The ones that get a brand-new stem

Guys, I know. I know.Many (and I mean many) of the most commonly used verbs just lose their minds in the preterit and have a completely different stem.

Just look at this: Decir Dij-, Poner Pus-

Your textbook may try to divide them up into 3 categories, stems with u, i and j, which I’ll do here, but honestly they’re all just crazy and you have to memorize them.

Verbs with u:Andar Anduv-Estar Estuv-Poder Pud-Poner Pus-Saber Sup-Tener Tuv-

Verbs with i:Hacer Hic-Querer Quis-Venir Vin-

Verbs with j:Conducir Conduj-Decir Dij-Producir Produj-Traducir Traduj-Traer Traj-

Cheat code for the crazy-stemmed verbs

Good news! If you can remember the new stems of those verbs, there is only one set of endings for the whole group of them:

For example, Estar:

Note that this conjugation is a mixture of both the regular -AR conjugation and the regular -ER/-IR conjugation. The shaded areas above help to illustrate this.

Also note that the verbs with the new stems do not carry a written accent.

-e -imos

-iste -isteis

-o -ieron

Estuve Estuvimos

Estuviste

Estuvisteis

Estuvo Estuvieron

The verb Haber

The present tense of haber is hay and it means there is/there are. There is only one conjugation in the present tense regardless of whether it is used with a singular or plural noun.

The preterit form of haber is hubo, and there is only one conjugation. It means there was/there were.

- ¿Hubo un accidente anoche en esta habitación? Es un desastre.

Was there an accident in this room last night? It is a disaster

- No, pero hubo un robo. Por eso todas las cosas estan dispersas.

No, but there was a robbery. That’s why everything is scattered.

Tips

-The best way to learn the preterit and to be able to conjugate it automatically is to keep it old school and hand-write each conjugation. Typing them or using already created flashcards removes the act of physical writing, which is one of the best ways to learn.

-The best way to become familiar with the meanings of each verb and conjugation is to write it both in Spanish and in English.

-I recommend making your flashcards like this:

Comí (I ate) Comimos (we ate)

Comiste (you ate) Comisteis (y’all ate)

Comió (he/ she/ you/ it ate) Comieron (they/ you all ate)