Pretérito de indicativo: Verbos regulares, irregulares y con cambio de raíz (Preterite tense in the indicative mood: Regular, irregular and stem-changing verbs)

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As you have previously learned, the preterite tense (el pretérito de indicativo) is used to talk about completed actions in the past. These are actions that happened once or had a clear beginning and end, such as:

• Actions that happened at a specific time in the past.

• Ayer bailé 💃con Samuel en la fiesta.

• Yesterday I danced with Samuel at the party.

• Actions that were completed in the past.

• Jaime estuvo 👩‍❤️‍👨con Brenda por cuatro años antes de casarse.

• Jaime was with Brenda for four years before getting married.

• A series of completed actions.

• Esta mañana me levanté 🥱, me duché 🚿, me preparé 💅 para la fiesta y salí 🚶de casa a las 10:00 a.m.

• This morning I got up, showered, got ready for the party and left the house at ten AM.

Note that in the first and third examples there are time expressions such as ayer (yesterday) and esta mañana (this morning). This is because they are a useful time expression/reference as to when that particular action occurred. To recognize when to use the preterite look for time expressions that indicate a specific moment in the past, such as:

• Anoche 🌙

• Last night

• El año pasado 🔙🕰️

• Last year

• Hace tres días/meses/años… 🔙⏳

• Three days/months/years ago

• En 2020…

• In 2020…

• La semana pasada 📆🔙

• Last week

• El mes pasado 🗓️🔙

• Last month

Let’s review the endings for regular verbs in the preterite:

Regular -ar verbs endings

Regular -er and -ir endings

Here are some fully conjugated regular verbs in the preterite:

Amar (to love) ❤️

Romper (to break up) 💔

Vivir (to live)

Let’s talk about irregularities and stem changes in the preterite tense.

-Ar and -er  verbs that have stem changes in the present will not have a stem change in the preterite, however, -ir verbs that do have stem changes in the present will have a stem change but it will only affect the third person singular and plural, as well as usted and ustedes forms.

The stem will change from e → i and o → u.

Preferir (to prefer)

Dormir (to sleep) 😴

Other stem changing -ir verbs are:

• sentir

• to feel

• servir

• to serve

• repetir

• to repeat

• vestir

• to dress

• advertir

• to warn

• mentir

• to lie

• arrepentirse

• to regret

• elegir

• to choose

• reír

• to laugh

• sonreír

• to smile

• seguir

• to continue

• conseguir

• to acquire

• pedir

• to request/ask for (something)

There is another type of irregularity in verbs ending in -car, -gar, and -zar, which implies a change in spelling in the first person singular (yo). All other forms will remain regular.

Other changes occur, this time only in the usted, ustedes and third person singular and plural forms for verbs that have two vowels back to back (though not all), changing from i → y, such as:

• leer (to read)

• leí, leíste, leyó, leímos, leísteis, leyeron

• oír (to hear)

• oí, oíste, oyó, oímos, oísteis, oyeron

• creer (to believe)

• creí, creíste, creyó, creímos, creísteis, creyeron

• caer (to fall)

• caí, caíste, cayó, caímos, caísteis, cayeron

• construir (to build/construct)

• construí, construíste, construyó, construimos, construisteis, construyeron

There is an additional group of verbs that are completely irregular in the preterite and must therefore be memorized. We use a little trick to remember them by classifying them into either i-stem, j-stem or u-stem verbs:

i-stem

j-stem

u-stem

Finally, we can’t forget about our very common irregular verbs that do not follow any particular pattern either, and therefore should be memorized:

• ser/ir (to be/to go)

• fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron

• haber (there was/there were)

• hubo

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