The Preterit ...

There are two aspects of the past tense in the Spanish language: the preterit and the imperfect.  The preterit represents a completed action in the past and views the past action in its beginning stage, in its end stage, or in its entirety. 

•   The beginning stage.

Anoche miré television desde las ocho.  

Last night I watched television from eight o’clock on.

•   The ending stage

Anoche miré television hasta las diez. 

Last night I watched television until ten o’clock.

•   The entire action. 

Anoche miré television por dos horas. 

Last night I watched television for two hours.

The Preterit of regular verbs is formed by adding the preterit endings to the infinitive stem.  The chart below shows the preterit forms of regular –ar, -er, -ir verbs.  The endings for the preterit are in bold.  Notice that they are different from the present tense endings. 

• You will notice that the –er and –ir verbs have the same ending in the preterit tense. 

• The first and third person singular endings carry an accent on the last syllable.

• The first person plural of the –ar and –ir verbs are identical in the present and the   preterit. 

• The meaning of the verb tense is usually made clear in the sentence context. 

• The –ar, -er verbs that change the stem from e Þ ie or o Þ ue in the present tense do not have a stem change in the preterit. 

• ¨Verbs that end in –car, -gar, and –zar undergo regular spelling changes in the form of the preterit.  The c becomes a qu, and g becomes gu to maintain the [k] or [g] sound of the infinitive before the –é ending.  Also z becomes c before the –é ending. 

¨      -er and –ir verbs whose infinitive stem ends in a strong vowel, such as creer, leer, and oir have a y in the third person singular and the plural of the preterit.  Note that the i of the preterit endings has written accent.  

Many common Spanish verbs, although irregular in the preterit, follow certain patterns that make them easier to learn by groups.  Note that the stress in the first and third persons singular of irregular preterit form falls on the next to the last syllable, as it does in the case of the regular preterits. 

The verbs ir (to go) and ser (to be) have identical forms in the preterit.  The context in which they are used will clarify whether the preterit form refers to ir or to ser.  The ver ir normally is followed by the preposition of “a”.     

Although the verb dar ends in –ar, it follows the same pattern as regular –er and –ir verbs in the preterit.  Note that the first and third persons have no written accents. 

The following chart shows the sets of irregular verbs in the preterit.  Note that the endings of the first two groups are identical.  The endings of the verbs with j in the stem differ from the first two sets only in the third person plural form, which ends in –eron (not -ieron).

The chart below shows the common verbs that follow the same pattern as estar, venir, and decir in the preterit.  The verb hacer has a spelling change from c to z in the third person singular (hizo).   

• The preterit of hay (there is, there are) is hubo.

• Most compounds of the verbs shown in the preceding charts form their preterit in the same way.

Proponer – propuso

Retener – retuvo

Predecir – predijeron 
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