VERBOS REGULARES EN EL PRETERITO
Preterite tense are used to talk about actions that occurred in the past. Preterite is used to express actions or states that are completed in the past.
The following charts will demonstrate the endings for AR, ER and IR verbs.
- ER and IR verbs have identical endings.
| AR verbs | ER verbs | IR verbs |
| Yo- é | Yo- í | Yo- í |
| Tú- aste | Tú- iste | Tú- iste |
| Él/ella/usted- ó | Él/ella/usted- ió | Él/ella/usted- ió |
| Nosotros/as- amos | Nosotros/as- imos | Nosotros/as- imos |
| Vosotros/as- asteis | Vosotros/as- isteis | Vosotros/as- isteis |
| Ellos/ellas/ustedes- aron | Ellos/ellas/ustedes- ieron | Ellos/ellas/ustedes- ieron |
Stem changing verbs
IR verbs are the only ones that have a stem change in the preterite. The stem change occurs in the third-person in singular and the third-person in plural forms.
| e: i | o: u |
Verbs ending in CAR, GAR and ZAR have a spelling change in the YO form
| YO | NOSOTROS/NOSOTRAS |
| TÚ | VOSOTROS/VOSOTRAS |
| ÉL/ELLA/USTED | ELLOS/ELLAS/USTEDES |
CAR– “c” changes to “qu” Buscar= yo busco Yo buscqué—- Yo busqué
GAR– “g” changes to “gu” Cargar= yo cargo—– Yo cargué
ZAR– “z” changes to “c” Empezar= yo empiezo (remember no stem-changing in ar verbs) yo empecé
Spelling changes:
Creer- to believe
| Yo- creí | Nosotros/as- creímos |
| tú- creíste | Vosotros/as- creísteis |
| él/ella/usted- creyó | Ellos/ellas/ustedes- creyeron |
Leer- to read
| Yo- leí | Nosotros/as- leímos |
| tú- leíste | Vosotros/as- leísteis |
| él/ella/usted- leyó | Ellos/ellas/ustedes- leyeron |
Oír- to hear
| Yo- oí | Nosotros/as-oímos |
| tú- oíste | Vosotros/as- oísteis |
| él/ella/usted- oyó | Ellos/ellas/ustedes- oyeron |
Acabar+ de+ infinitive is used to talk about actions that just occurred, but are still in the past.
PRÁCTICA
Now that you have learned about irregular verbs in the preterite, let’s practice;
Ejercicio 1
Ejercicio 2
Ejercicio 3
Licensing and Attribution:
Gramática content on this page was remixed from Español por el mundo by Gemma Morawski and Ani Alcocer, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Adaptations include voice pronunciations provided by Gemma Morawski and openly-licensed images throughout the H5P flashcards attributed on each card via the H5P editing dashboard and forvo.com . Further adaptations include practice activities created by Gemma Morawski via H5p. Activities were remixed from the following sites;
2.1: El pretérito is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.