Gramática 24: The irregular stem-changing preterite

 

All the verbs presented in Gramática 24 (though superfically quite different) really do belong to the same family.

• This family of verbs are ones who show profound and irregular changes to their stems in the preterite forms, and those profound changes are present throughout the conjugation (even nosotros forms).

 

• The trick to being successful with these verbs is two-fold:
• 1. Get all the irregular stems memorized.
• 2. Memorize the cohort of endings that is used with this verb family (which is different from all other sets of preterite endings). 

Let's begin by memorizing what I call the "u-stem" verbs.

• These verbs are:
• estar
• tener
• poder

 

• Why do I call them u-stems? Because in the preterite their stems change to:
• estuv 
• tuv
• pud
   
• Don't worry about why this is so--just memorize that these are the preterite stems you need.

Next, let's memorize what I call the "i-stem" verbs.

• These verbs are:
• querer
• venir
• hacer

 

• Why call them i-stems? Because in the preterite their stems change to:
• quis
• vin
• hic (the stem for the 3rd-person singular form is "hiz"--more on that later)
   
• Again, the whole trick here is just to learn that these are the preterite stems you need (and memorization is the best way to do that).

Now let's learn what I call the "inverted stem" verbs.

• These verbs are:
• saber
• poner

 

• Why call them inverted stems? Because in the preterite their stems change to inverses of each other:
• sup
• pus
   
• Again, your job is to learn that these are the preterite stems you need for these 2 verbs. 

To end, we need to deal with what I call the "j-stem" verbs.

• These verbs are:
• decir and traer
   
• Just FYI, all verbs whose infinitives end in -ucir do this, too (we don't have any in Gramática 24, though).  
   
• Why call them j-stems? Because in the preterite their stems change to:
• dij
• traj
   
• NOTE: As we will see on the next slide, this sub-family has a different 3rd-person-plural ending than the rest of the irregular stem-changing preterite verbs.

To conjugate all these verbs in the preterite, do this:

• 1. Write your irregular stem.
• 2. Add the appropriate ending to that stem for the subject.

What are our irregular-stem-changing preterite endings? Good question. They are:

• For subject yo: "e" (NO accent mark)
   
• For subject tú: "iste"
   
• For 3rd-person-singular subject: "o" (NO accent mark)
   
• For subject nosotros: "imos"
   
• For 3rd-person-plural subject for all verbs except J-stems: ieron
• For 3rd-person plural subject for J-stem verbs: eron

Let's see some of these verbs fully conjugated (we'll look at "hacer" separately on the next slide):

U-stem verb: estar

Irregular stem: estuv

Conjugated forms:

• yo estuve
• tú estuviste
• él/ella/Ud. estuvo
• nosotros estuvimos
• ellos/ellas/Uds. estuvieron

I-stem verb: querer

Irregular stem: quis

Conjugated forms:

• yo quise
• tú quisiste
• él/ella/Ud. quiso
• nosotros quisimos
• ellos/ellas/Uds. quisieron

J-stem verb: decir

Irregular stem: dij

Conjugated forms:

• yo dije

• tú dijiste
• él/ella/Ud. dijo
• nosotros dijimos
• ellos/ellas/Uds. dijeron

We will look at I-stem irregular preterite verb "hacer" separately because of a spelling change it has in its 3rd-person singular form:

I-stem verb: hacer

Irregular stem: hic (with one exception)

Conjugated forms:

• yo hice
• tú hiciste
• él/ella/Ud. hiZo
• nosotros hicimos
• ellos/ellas/Uds. hicieron