8.7: Los verbos irregulares en el pretérito

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Objetivos

Understand the irregular preterite verb conjugation

By now we have learned the preterit past tense, including the conjugation of regular verbs, verbs with a spelling change to preserve their pronunciation, and stem-changing verbs. All of those groups of verbs use the same sets of endings (for -AR verbs or for -ER/-IR verbs) in the preterit, but may change a stem vowel or consonant. Now we’ll learn the irregular preterit verbs, which have irregular stems and irregular endings. You’ll note that none of the irregular preterit verbs have accent marks on their endings.

There are a lot of irregular verbs in the preterit, and you’ll need to pay close attention to small details that may change, for example sometimes the 3rd person plural ending is “-eron” instead of “-ieron”. It may help to remember them in sub-groups that have similar (not always identical!) irregularities.

List of irregular preterit verbs:

Monumento a los Caídos por España: “Honor a todos los que dieron su vida por España.”

Andar (to walk) – anduve, anduviste, anduvo, anduvimos, anduvisteis, anduvieron
Estar (to be) – estuve, estuviste, estuvo, estuvimos, estuvisteis, estuvieron
Tener (to have) – tuve, tuviste, tuvo, tuvimos, tuvisteis, tuvieron

Conducir (to drive) – conduje, condujiste, condujo, condujimos, condujisteis, condujeron
Decir (to say, to tell) – dije, dijiste, dijo, dijimos, dijisteis, dijeron
Traer (to bring) – traje, trajiste, trajo, trajimos, trajisteis, trajeron

Poder (to be able) – pude, pudiste, pudo, pudimos, pudisteis, pudieron
Poner (to put) – puse, pusiste, puso, pusimos, pusisteis, pusieron
Saber (to know) – supe, supiste, supo, supimos, supisteis, supieron

Dar (to give) – di, diste, dio, dimos, disteis, dieron
Hacer (to make, to do) – hice, hiciste, hizo, hicimos, hicisteis, hicieron
Querer (to want) – quise, quisiste, quiso, quisimos, quisisteis, quisieron
Venir (to come) – vine, viniste, vino, vinimos, vinisteis, vinieron
Ver (to see) – vi, viste, vio, vimos, visteis, vieron

Ir (to go) – fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron
Ser (to be) – fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron

Did you notice?

Which verbs lose the “i” in the third person plural, i.e. which ones have the “-eron” ending instead of -ieron?
Which of these irregular verbs is a good example of the spelling change rule, “z changes to c before i and before e”?
What’s the difference between the preterit conjugations of “ser” and of “ir”?

Gramu00e1tica: Los verbos irregulares en el pretu00e9rito. Authored by: SUNY Oneonta with Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution

Monumento a los Cau00eddos por Espau00f1a. Authored by: CARLOS TEIXIDOR CADENAS. Located at: es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:12_de_octubre_de_2014_en_Madrid,_D%C3%ADa_de_la_Fiesta_Nacional,_Plaza_de_la_Lealtad,_llama_de_honor.JPG. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike