Spanish Irregular Preterite Verbs
Irregular Verbs in the Preterite
Verbs with irregular stems and endings in the Pretérito Indefinido (simple past) tense.
The Pretérito Indefinido (past simple) has many irregular verbs in Spanish. These verbs undergo a stem change and use a special set of endings (-e, -iste, -o, -imos, -isteis, -ieron) that do not carry accent marks. For example: tener -> tuv- (tuve), estar -> estuv- (estuve), hacer -> hic- (hice, hizo), decir -> dij- (dije, dijeron), and poder -> pud- (pude). Additionally, ser and ir share the exact same highly irregular forms (fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron).
Examples
Ayer yo estuve en la biblioteca municipal.
Yesterday I was at the municipal library.
Él hizo un pastel muy sabroso para la fiesta.
He made a very tasty cake for the party.
Nosotros fuimos a la playa el sábado pasado.
We went to the beach last Saturday.
Related terms
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