Grammar 7.4: The regular preterite tense

 

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of conjugating in this new tense, we need to discuss what it can and cannot be used for.

 

• The preterite is not used for every past action/situation in Spanish. 
• In general, describing in the past (as in "The sky was blue"; "The trees were green"; "Her hair was blond") is not done with the preterite.
• You also cannot use the preterite for simulataneous actions in the past ("He sang while I danced") in Spanish.
• There is another past tense called the imperfect that is used for these things, and we are not learning it this semester.

What is the preterite used for, then?

In general:

• The preterite is active and dynamic.
• It is used to state the events that move a narrative set in the past forward (as in "first this happened, then this, then this", and so on).

Specifically, it is used for:

• Stating one-time actions or events that occurred in the past.
• Narrating a sequence of completed past actions.
• Talking about feelings or situations that occurred only during a set, limited time in the past (as in, "I lived in Spain for a year").
• Presenting an active change in physical, mental or emotional states (as in, "I got mad" or "She became despondent".)
• Stating that a physical, mental or emotional state arose in response to a specific situation (as in, "When you said that, I felt awful").

Conjugating in the regular preterite tense:

We'll begin with -AR verbs.

Like all conjugation we've seen thus far, the process is simple:

• Step 1: derive the stem by removing the -AR infinitive ending
• Step 2: to the stem, add the correct preterite ending for the subject.
• That's it!

Our preterite endings for -AR verbs are:

• For subject "yo": "é"
• For subject "tú": "aste"
• For 3rd-person-singular subject (él, ella, usted, any singular noun): "ó"
• For subject "nosotros" or "nosotras": "amos"
• For 3rd-person-plural subject (ellos, ellas, ustedes, any plural noun or series of nouns) : "aron"

Let's conjugate the -AR verb "cerrar" in the preterite tense.

Note that even though this verb has a stem change in the present tense, there is no stem change at all in the preterite:

Now let's work on -ER verbs and -IR verbs (but only -IR verbs that do not stem-change in the present tense)

Again, the process is simple:

• Step 1: derive the stem by removing the -ER or -IR infinitive ending
• Step 2: to the derived stem, add the correct preterite ending for the subject.
• That's it!

Our preterite endings for -ER and -IR verbs are:

• For subject "yo": "í"
• For subject "tú": "iste"
• For 3rd-person-singular subject (él, ella, usted, any singular noun): "ió"
• For subject "nosotros" or "nosotras": "imos"
• For 3rd-person-plural subject (ellos, ellas, ustedes, any plural noun or series of nouns) : "ieron"

Let's conjugate the -ER verb "entender" in the preterite tense.

Note that even though this verb has a stem change in the present tense, there is no stem change at all in the preterite:

To end, let's conjugate the -IR verb "vivir" in the preterite tense.

• Note that this verb has NO stem change in the present tense. -IR verbs that do stem change in the present have special preterite forms, which we will see later this semester.