the Spanish preterite

when to use it

Use it for events: what happened, in order, one after another. If you are telling somebody what you did at the weekend, nearly every verb in the answer is a preterite. It is the tense that moves a story forward, and the imperfect is the tense that describes the scenery around it.

Words that tend to sit with it: ayer, la semana pasada, el año pasado, de repente

• ayer comí paella ~ yesterday I ate paella
• fuimos a la playa ~ we went to the beach

how to build it

Remove the -ar / -er / -ir, then add the ending.

one verb from each group

The three regular patterns side by side, so the only thing changing between columns is the group the verb belongs to.

what goes wrong

Losing the accent. Hablo is I speak and habló is he spoke, and the only difference between them is a mark that is easy to leave off under time pressure.

Half of what look like irregulars here are spelling adjustments in the yo form only, made to keep the sound: busqué, llegué, empecé. The real rebels are the strong preterites, which rebuild the stem and drop the accents entirely: tuve, hice, fui, dije.

common questions

what are the preterite endings in Spanish?

-ar verbs take -é, -aste, -ó, -amos, -asteis, -aron. -er and -ir verbs share one set: -í, -iste, -ió, -imos, -isteis, -ieron. The yo and él forms carry accents in both groups, and those accents change the meaning rather than decorating it.

when do you use the preterite instead of the imperfect?

Use the preterite when the action is finished and the imperfect when it was ongoing, repeated or in the background. How long ago it happened makes no difference: viví en Madrid durante diez años is preterite because the living is over, and estaba en casa is imperfect because it was the setting for something else.