The Preterite Tense

The Preterite Tense (also spelled “preterit”) is one of two ways to talk about events that happened in the past in Spanish. The preterite tense is used to indicate a single, completed action that took place at a specific point in time. For example:

Armando me llamó a las nueve.
Armando called me at nine o’clock.

Regresaron de España ayer.
They returned from Spain yesterday.

Olivia se fue esta tarde.
Olivia left this afternoon.

Preterite conjugations can be pretty tricky due to the large amount of irregular verbs and some other complicated situations. To learn how to form preterite conjugations, keep reading. For more on when to use the Preterite Tense, see Using the Imperfect and the Preterite.

Regular Preterite Tense Verbs

To conjugate regular “-ar” verbs in the preterite, take off the ending and add the following:

“-ar” endings:

-é	-amos
-aste	-asteis
-ó	-aron

Don’t let the “-é” in the yo form throw you off; it’s still an “-ar” verb conjugation. It’s absolutely critical that the “o” in the él/ella/usted form conjugation get an accent mark so it isn’t confused with the present tense yo form conjugation.

To conjugate regular “-er” and “-ir” verbs in the preterite, take off the endings and add the following:

“-er” / “-ir” endings:

-í	-imos
-iste	-isteis
-ió	-ieron

Here are some examples:

hablar:

hablé	hablamos
hablaste	hablasteis
habló	hablaron

comer:

comí	comimos
comiste	comisteis
comió	comieron

vivir:

viví	vivimos
viviste	vivisteis
vivió	vivieron

Preterite Spelling Change Verbs

The yo form endings for “-ar” verbs occasionally cause pronunciation problems because some letters are pronounced differently depending on the vowels that follow them. The letters “c” and “g,” for example, sound different when they’re followed by an “a” or an “o” than when they’re followed by an “e” or “i.” Since the preterite yo form ending is an “e”, we need to change the spellings of the stems of “-car” verbs, “-gar” verbs, and “-zar” verbs in order to keep the pronunciation consistent. For example:

tocar (c → qu):

toqué	tocamos
tocaste	tocasteis
tocó	tocaron

jugar (g → gu):

jugué	jugamos
jugaste	jugasteis
jugó	jugaron

lanzar (z → c):

lancé	lanzamos
lanzaste	lanzasteis
lanzó	lanzaron

Tocar has a “-que” ending in the yo form to keep the original “c” sound being pronounced like a “k” rather than like an “s.” Jugar now has a “-gue” ending to keep the original “g” sound pronounced like a “g” rather than like an “h.” And lanzar now has a “-ce” because, well… anytime we can use a “c,” we should. The “e” ending gives us an opportunity to do so.

It doesn’t happen often, but “-guar” verbs will also require a spelling change. Take a verb like averiguar which means “to verify.” When we conjugate in the yo form of the preterite, we need to add a “dieresis,” which means the “u” becomes a “ü”:

Yo averigüé los datos ayer.
I verified the facts yesterday.

The “ü” tells us to pronounce the “gu” like a “gw” so that our pronunciation will be consistent with the infinitive, averiguar.

These spelling changes only happen for “-ar” preterite verbs and only in the yo form because the “-e” is the only ending that creates problems for the “c,” “g,” “z” and the “gu.”

More Spelling Changes

Certain “-er” and “-ir” verbs are also going to need spelling changes to keep pronunciation consistent. This time around it’s the él/ella/Ud. and ellos/ellas/Uds. forms that cause problems. The endings for those conjugations are “-ió” and “-ieron.” Notice how they both start with two vowels? If we have a verb whose stem ends in a vowel, and then we add one of those endings, we’re going to end up with three vowels in a row. It’s difficult to pronounce a word with a three vowel combination. To solve that problem, we change the “i” to a “y.”

Some common trouble making verbs conjugated in the ellos/ellas/Uds. form:

infinitive:	three vowels:	i→y spelling change:
caer	caieron	cayeron
contribuir	contribuieron	contribuyeron
creer	creieron	creyeron
leer	leieron	leyeron
incluir	incluieron	incluyeron
oír	oieron	oyeron

The él/ella/Ud. form conjugations will use the same spelling change. Here is a complete set of conjugations for some common verbs:

caer:

caí	caímos
caíste	caísteis
cayó	cayeron

leer:

leí	leímos
leíste	leísteis
leyó	leyeron

oír:

oí	oímos
oíste	oísteis
oyó	oyeron

As you can see, this “i” → “y” spelling change only occurs in the bottom row of conjugations.

An exception to the “i” → “y” spelling change rule are “-guir” verbs and “-quir” verbs. While the stems do end in a vowel, the “u” is not actually being pronounced. Because of that, we can pronounce the three vowels in a row and a “y” is not necessary.

infinitive:	stem:	preterite:
extinguir	extingu-	extinguieron

Preterite Stem Changing Verbs

Stem Changing “-ar” and “-er” Verbs

All “-ar” and “-er” verbs which have stem changes in the present tense are completely regular in the preterite, which is to say that they don’t have stem changes in the preterite. Notice how the stem does not change in any conjugation:

pensar (e → ie):

pensé	pensamos
pensaste	pensasteis
pensó	pensaron

perder (e → ie):

perdí	perdimos
perdiste	perdisteis
perdió	perdieron

Stem Changing “-ir” Verbs

Stem-changing “-ir” verbs do have a stem change which is sometimes different from the present tense stem change; “e → ie” stem changers in the present tense become “e → i” stem changers in the preterite, “e → i” stem changers remain “e → i”, and “o → ue” stem changers become “o → u”:

present tense:	preterite tense:
e → ie	e → i
e → i	e → i
o → ue	o → u

However, this change only happens in the él/ella/usted form and the ellos/ellas/ustedes form:

sentir (e → ie):

sentí	sentimos
sentiste	sentisteis
sintió	sintieron

pedir (e → i):

pedí	pedimos
pediste	pedisteis
pidió	pidieron

dormir (o → ue):

dormí	dormimos
dormiste	dormisteis
durmió	durmieron

In some books verbs like these will have special notations to let you know about the additional preterite stem change: sentir (e → ie, e → i), dormir (o → ue, o → u), etc.

Because these additional changes only take place on the bottom line of the conjugation chart they are sometimes referred to as “basement buddies.”

Irregular Preterite Tense Verbs

The “U” Group, “I” Group, and “J” Group

There are many irregular preterite conjugations which have both stem changes (only in the preterite tense) and their own set of endings. It can be helpful to put them into groups to help you memorize them.

The “U” Group

Most of the irregular verbs have stem changes which involve the letter “u”:

andar	→	anduv-
caber	→	cup-
estar	→	estuv-
poder	→	pud-
poner	→	pus-
saber	→	sup-
tener	→	tuv-

The “I” Group

There are a couple others with stem changes involving the letter “i”:

querer	→	quis-
venir	→	vin-

For both of these groups, the “u” group “i” group, there is a different set of endings:

-e	-imos
-iste	-isteis
-o	-ieron

Note that these endings are very similar to the “-ir” verbs with the exception of the yo and él/ella/usted forms, and that there are no accent marks needed. Some examples:

saber:

supe	supimos
supiste	supisteis
supo	supieron

tener:

tuve	tuvimos
tuviste	tuvisteis
tuvo	tuvieron

venir:

vine	vinimos
viniste	vinisteis
vino	vinieron

The “J” Group

There is one more group of stem changers, the “j” group:

conducir	→	conduj-
decir	→	dij-
producir	→	produj-
traer	→	traj-

The endings for the “j” group stems are almost identical to the “u”/“i”

-e	-imos
-iste	-isteis
-o	-eron

Notice that there is no “i” in the ellos/ellas/ustedes form ending. Some examples:

decir:

dije	dijimos
dijiste	dijisteis
dijo	dijeron

traer:

traje	trajimos
trajiste	trajisteis
trajo	trajeron

Other Irregular Preterite Verbs

There are several other completely irregular preterite verbs. Here are the conjugations for dar, hacer, ir, and ser:

dar:

di	dimos
diste	disteis
dio	dieron

hacer:

hice	hicimos
hiciste	hicisteis
hizo	hicieron

ir:

fui	fuimos
fuiste	fuisteis
fue	fueron

ser:

fui	fuimos
fuiste	fuisteis
fue	fueron

Even though dar is an “-ar” verb, it takes “-er” / “-ir” verb endings (minus the accent marks).

If you look carefully, you’ll notice that hacer isn’t completely irregular (it could fit quite nicely the “i” group) but the need for consistent pronunciation forces us to use a “z” in the él/ella/usted form.

That’s not a typo—the conjugations of ir and ser are identical—context makes the meaning clear.

And there is one more (slightly) irregular preterite verb:

ver:

vi	vimos
viste	visteis
vio	vieron

The yo and él/ella/Ud. forms of ver do not have accent marks.