PAST TENSE

In Spanish there are 2 simple past tenses, the preterite and the imperfect. A simple tense is one that does not need an auxiliary verb, such as to have.

1.      El pretérito/ The preterite

2.      El imperfecto/ The imperfect

 

EL PRETÉRITO/ THE PRETERIT

The preterite is used to refer to an action, state or condition that is considered fully completed in the past. It is formed by removing the infinitive endings -ar, -er, and -ir and adding the appropriate endings as follows:

NOTE: The endings of verbs ending in -er and -ir are identical.

Pronoun	Comprar/ to buy	Vender/ to sell	Recibir/ to receive
yo/ I	compré	vendí	recibí
tú/ you	compraste	vendiste	recibiste
él, ella, Ud./ he, she, you	compró	vendió	recibió
nos./ we	compramos	vendimos	recibimos
vos./you	comprasteis	vendisteis	recibisteis
ellos, Uds./ they, you	compraron	vendieron	recibieron

NOTE: The first person (yo), the third person ( él, ella) and Ud. require written accents. Without the accents, these words mean something else. For instance, compro (without the accent) is the present tense for the first person. For accentuation rules, click here.

 

EL USO DEL PRETÉRITO/ THE USE OF THE PRETERIT

1. The preterite tense is used to report the beginning or the end of an action.

EXAMPLES

·         Ana abrió la puerta y salió volando./ Ana opened the door and left swiftly.

·         Esta mañana empezó a llover./ This morning it started to rain.

 

2. The Spanish preterite has 2 equivalents in English.

EXAMPLE

Llovió ayer.

It rained yesterday. It did rain yesterday.

 

NOTE: There is NO equivalent for the English auxiliary did. Therefore, to formulate a question in preterite tense, the subject and the verb are inverted or the interrogative intonation is used.

EXAMPLE

¿Subió el interés? ¿El interés subió?

Did the interest increase?

3. The preterite can be used to interrupt an action in the imperfect tense (IT).

EXAMPLE

·         Trabajábamos (IT) intensamente cuando anunciaron los despidos masivos./ We were working intensely when they announced the massive lay-offs.

 

CASOS IRREGULARES/ IRREGULAR CASES

1. In order to preserve the sound of the infinitive, regular verbs that end in -car, -gar, and -zar have spelling changes in the first person (yo) as follows:

Change	EXAMPLES
	Infinitive	Preterit
c to qu	buscar/ to look for	busqué/ I looked for
	sacar/ to pull out	saqué/ I pulled out
	atacar/ to attack	ataqué/ I attacked
g to gu	llegar/ to arrive	llegué/ I arrived
	pagar/ to pay	pagué/ I paid
	apagar/ to turn-off	apagué/ I turned-off
z to c	empezar/ to start	empecé/ I started
	comenzar/ to commence	comencé/ I commenced
	almorzar/ to eat lunch	almorcé/ I ate lunch

2. Verbs ending in vowel + ir and vowel + er, such as caer/ to fall, the preterite ending -ió (which is for él, ella, Ud.) and -ieron (which is for ellos, Uds.), change to -yó and -yeron respectively.

EXAMPLES

Infinitive	él, ella, Ud.	ellos, Uds.
leer/ to read	leyó (leyó)	leyeron
oír/ to hear	oyó	oyeron
caer/ to fall	cayó	cayeron
construir/ construct	construyó	construyeron
Other verbs: contribuir/ to contribute, destruir/ to destroy, incluir/ to include, atribuir/ to attribute, creer/ to believe, huir/ to run away.

3. The following examples have irregular endings for yo and Ud. The endings are -e and -o instead of -í and -ió. NOTE: NO written accent is required.

EXAMPLES

Infinitive	yo	Ud.
andar/ to go, to walk	anduve	anduvo
caber/ to be contained	cupe	cupo
estar/ to be	estuve	estuvo
hacer/ to make	hice	hizo
haber/ to have (auxiliary)	hube	hubo
poder/ to be able, can	pude	pudo
poner/ to put	puse	puso
saber/ to know	supe	supo
tener/ to have	tuve	tuvo
querer/ to want	quise	quiso
venir/ to come	vine	vino

4. Verbs that end in -decir and -ducir, j is used as follows:

EXCEPTION: The verb traer/ to bring is in this category.

EXAMPLES

Pronoun	decir/ to tell	reducir/ to reduce	traer/ to bring
yo/ I	dije	reduje	traje
tú/ you	dijiste	redujiste	trajiste
él, ella, Ud./ he, she, you	dijo	redujo	trajo
nos./ we	dijimos	redujimos	trajimos
vos./you	dijisteis	redujisteis	trajisteis
ellos, Uds./ they, you	dijeron	redujeron	trajeron