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AP Spanish Study Sheet: Preterite Irregular Verbs

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Figure It Out!

Anoche una compañera de clase vino a mi casa para ayudarme a estudiar para el examen de matemáticas. Ella trajo sus apuntes y su texto. Por dos horas quise hacer los ejercicios, pero no tuve éxito. De repente tuve una idea. Le dije que el día anterior había comprado boletos para un concierto. Ella me dijo que quería ir. Entonces, resulta que fuimos juntos al concierto. Ella condujo el auto mientras yo seguí estudiando en el camino, pero no pude terminar. Tuvimos una linda experiencia en el concierto, pero después me di cuenta de que todavía necesitaba estudiar. ¡Parece que mi decisión sólo me trajo más problemas!

In the previous paragraph about this student's excursion from homework, what do the

underlined words have in common? What do they tell us regarding when this story takes

place? How do they reveal the time frame of the story?

Introduction

Wouldn't it be nice if languages were perfectly regular and orderly? That way, you'd only

have to learn one way to conjugate verbs and be done with it! You might think that way

after wrestling with Spanish verbs for a while, but think again. A lot of what makes

languages interesting and gives them character are the irregularities. And it just so happens

that the most irregular verbs in both English and Spanish are also the most common ones.

When you think about it, that's really an advantage for the learner; it gives you more

opportunities to practice them. In this Activity you'll review the common irregular verbs in

the preterit tense.

Preterit Tense: Irregular Verb Forms

Irregular verbs in the preterit tense use a combination of the –ar and the –er and –ir conjugations, except they do not have any accent marks. The following table shows this

combination.

REGULAR –AR VERBS IRREGULAR VERBS REGULAR –ER & –IR VERBS

–é –amos –e –imos –í –imos –aste –asteis –iste –isteis –iste –isteis

–ó –aron –o –(i)eron –ió –ieron

Notice that the 1st and 3rd person singular forms of regular –ar verbs, along with the 2nd person singular and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person plural forms of regular –er and –ir verbs in the preterit tense, are combined for irregular verbs in the preterit tense. The main

difference between regular and irregular verb endings in the preterit is that irregular verbs

in the preterit do not have any accent marks. Also notice the 3rd person plural form. The –i– is in parenthesis because for some irregular verbs in the preterit it is omitted when the

ending follows a –j in the verb stem.

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Preterit Tense: Irregular Verb Stems

Other than having different endings, another thing that makes irregular verbs so irregular in

the preterit tense is that some of the stems change. There are three types of irregular verb

stems in the preterit: –u–, –i–, and –j–. The following two tables show these irregular stems

along with some common verbs.

IRREGULAR VERBS IN THE PRETERIT TENSE: –U– AND –I– STEMS

English Infinitives Verbs –U– and –I– Stems Endings

–e –imos

–iste –isteis

–o –ieron

(to walk)

(to fit)

(to be)

(to have)

(to be able)

(to put)

(to want)

(to know)

(to have)

(to come)

andar

caber

estar

haber

poder

poner

querer

saber

tener

venir

anduv– cup– estuv– hub– pud– pus–

quis– sup– tuv– vin–

IRREGULAR VERBS IN THE PRETERIT TENSE: –J– STEMS

English Infinitives Verbs –J– Stems Endings

–e –imos

–iste –isteis

–o –eron

(to drive)

(to say)

(to produce)

(to bring)

(to translate)

conducir

decir

producir

traer

traducir

conduj– dij–

produj– traj– traduj–

Remember that the 3rd person plural ending for –j– stem verbs in the preterit is –eron, not

–ieron.

Another important point is that verbs derived from the previous two sets of irregular verbs

in the preterit tense have the same irregularities as the verbs from which they are derived.

That is, any of the irregular verbs that has a prefix added it is conjugated exactly like the

irregular verb, except of course for the prefix. The following table shows some of the more

common ones.

DERIVATIVES FROM IRREGULAR STEM VERBS IN THE PRETERIT TENSE

decir bendecir, contradecir, predecir, etc. hacer deshacer, rehacer, satisfacer, etc. poner componer, imponer, oponer, proponer, reponer, suponer, etc. tener contener, detener, mantener, obtener, retener, sostener, etc. venir convenir, intervenir, prevenir, etc. traer atraer, contraer, distraer(se), etc.

For example: obtuve, obtuviste, obtuvo, obtuvimos, obtuvisteis, obtuvieron.

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Preterit Tense: Other Irregular Verbs

There are some verbs that are so irregular that their conjugations are unique; that is, they

do not fit into any pattern. The following table shows the four most common irregular verbs

in the preterit tense.

MOST COMMON IRREGULAR VERBS IN THE PRETERIT TENSE

SER (to be) IR (to go) HACER (to make) DAR (to give)

fui fuimos fui fuimos hice hicimos di dimos

fuiste fuisteis fuiste fuisteis hiciste hicisteis diste disteis

fue fueron fue fueron hizo hicieron dio dieron

You probably noticed that ser and ir have identical conjugations in the preterit. So this one is a "freebie." You only have to learn one irregular verb conjugation and you can apply it to

two verbs. There aren't too many of these. Thank goodness these two verbs are used a lot.

As stated earlier, any verbs derived from the previous set of the most common irregular

verbs in the preterit tense have the same irregularities as the verbs from which they are

derived. For example, deshacer, rehacer, and satisfacer are all conjugated like the verb hacer (i.e. rehice, rehiciste, rehizo, rehicimos, rehicisteis, rehicieron).

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