Pretérito indefinido: Irregular Verbs

📌 Nota gramatical

Certain verbs change their root vowel to 'u' in the preterit and take stressed-unaccented irregular endings: -e, -iste, -o, -imos, -isteis, -ieron. 'Tener' becomes tuv-, 'estar' becomes estuv-, and 'andar' becomes anduv-.

📌 Nota gramatical

Verbs like 'decir' (to say/tell) and 'traer' (to bring) change their root to 'dij-' and 'traj-'. Crucially, in the third-person plural (ellos/ellas/ustedes), the ending is '-eron' (dropping the 'i'), giving 'dijeron' and 'trajeron'.

📌 Nota gramatical

Verbs like 'hacer' (hic-), 'querer' (quis-), and 'venir' (vin-) take an 'i' in their irregular root. Note that 'hacer' uses a 'c' for most forms, but changes to 'z' in the third-person singular (hizo) to preserve the /θ/ or /s/ sound.

📌 Nota gramatical

The verbs 'poder' (to be able to) and 'poner' (to put) change their root vowel to 'o' in the preterit: 'pud-' and 'pus-'. They follow the standard irregular stem-changing paradigm (-e, -iste, -o, -imos, -isteis, -ieron).

📌 Nota gramatical

The preterit forms for both 'ser' (to be) and 'ir' (to go) are identical: fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron. Context determines whether the verb means 'was/were' or 'went'.

📌 Nota gramatical

The verb 'dar' (to give) takes regular -ar endings, but without any written accent marks on the first and third person singular: di, diste, dio, dimos, disteis, dieron. Notice that 'dio' does not have an accent.

📌 Nota gramatical

The verb 'ver' (to see) conjugates with regular -er endings, but drops the stem vowel 'e' in most forms and takes no accent marks: vi, viste, vio, vimos, visteis, vieron. Note especially 'vi' and 'vio' have no accents.

📌 Nota gramatical

-Ir verbs that have an 'e->ie' or 'e->i' stem change in the present tense undergo an 'e->i' stem change in the preterit, but only in the third-person singular and plural (él/ella/usted and ellos/ellas/ustedes).

📌 Nota gramatical

-Ir verbs with an 'o->ue' stem change in the present tense (like dormir and morir) change 'o' to 'u' in the preterit, strictly in the third-person singular and plural forms (durmió, durmieron).

📌 Nota gramatical

Verbs ending in -ducir (conducir, traducir, producir) have a root that changes to -duj-. Additionally, their third-person plural drops the 'i' of the ending, ending in -eron (condujeron, tradujeron).

📌 Nota gramatical

When an -er or -ir verb root ends in a vowel (leer, caer, oír), the 'i' of the third-person ending changes to 'y' (leyó, leyeron) to avoid three vowels colliding. Unaccented 'i' becomes 'y' in él/ella/usted and ellos/ellas/ustedes.

📌 Nota gramatical

The verb 'saber' (to know information/find out) changes its stem to 'sup-' in the preterit. Similarly, 'caber' (to fit) changes to 'cup-'. They take the standard irregular endings (-e, -iste, -o, -imos, -isteis, -ieron).