If you’re not familiar with these verbs, here are 50 common irregular preterite Spanish verbs to get you started.Īnother interesting phenomenon to note is that the ser and ir preterite conjugations are identical. Irregular verb conjugations take some memorization.įortunately, many of the most common irregular preterite verbs follow patterns, consisting of a new stem and different endings for a few subjects. Irregular Preterite VerbsĪll regular verbs can be transformed into the preterite tense easily. See our guide on Spanish pronouns if you need to brush up on the subject pronouns found in the “Person” category above. Adding temporal expressions such as ayer (yesterday) helps speakers distinguish when something took place. Note that the nosotros form is the same as the present tense form.

Person Verbs ending in -ar Verbs ending in -er and -ir yo -é -í tú -aste -iste él, ella, usted -ó -ió nosotros -amos -imos vosotros -asteis -isteis ellos, ellas, ustedes -aron -ieron To form the preterite in Spanish with regular verbs, remove the -ar, -ir, or -er and add the appropriate ending from the chart below.

Spanish verbs come in three categories ( -ar, -ir, and - er) and change (“conjugate”) according to who performed it and when the action occurred. The preterite is used to describe actions which have been completed. The Spanish preterite tense is one of five forms used to describe actions or events that occurred in the past.

Preterite tense spanish translator