Irregular Preterite Forms

Unfortunately, there are a fair number of irregular forms in the Preterite. Irregular forms in the Preterite are said to have "radical" changes, that is, consonant changes, not just changes in vowels like stem-changing verbs. These irregular preterite consonant changes also are NOT for orthographic (spelling) reasons (like the verbs ending in -Car, -Gar and -Zar.).

Some common Irregular verbs with radical changes in the Preterite are:

	Yo	tú	él, ella, usted	nosotros	ellos, ellas, ustedes
Andar	anduve	anduviste	anduvo	anduvimos	anduvieron
Conducir³	conduje	condujiste	condujo	condujimos	condujeron
Dar^1,2	di	diste	dio	dimos	dieron
Decir³	dije	dijiste	dijo	dijimos	dijeron
Estar	estuve	estuviste	estuvo	estuvimos	estuvieron
Hacer	hice	hiciste	hizo	hicimos	hicieron
*Ir & Ser²**	fui	fuiste	fue	fuimos	fueron
Poner	puse	pusiste	puso	pusimos	pusieron
Poder	pude	pudiste	pudo	pudimos	pudieron
Querer	quise	quisiste	quiso	quisimos	quisieron
Saber	supe	supiste	supo	supimos	supieron
Tener	tuve	tuviste	tuvo	tuvimos	tuvieron
Traer³	traje	trajiste	trajo	trajimos	trajeron
Venir	vine	viniste	vino	vinimos	vinieron
Ver²	vi	viste	vio	vimos	vieron

¹Dar is often humorously referred to as the "cross-dressing" verb, because in the Preterite Dar takes on the Ir/Er verb endings rather than Ar verb endings.
²Verbs with only 2 or 3 letters, such as Dar, Ser, Ir and Ver, do not carry accent marks in the Preterite.

Notice that ALL irregulars with radical changes in the stem don't use accent marks [like Estar, Hacer, Poner, Poder, etc.]

³ Irregulars which use a "J" in the Preterite only add "-eron" (NOT "-ieron") to the third-person plural [for example: Decir, Traer, Conducir ] and don't use accent marks.

*Note: Ir and Ser share the same forms in the Preterite. The context of a sentence or a conversation will let you know which is being used. For example:

Fui al supermercado clearly means "I went to the supermarket," not *"I was to the supermarket."

While there are more irregulars in the Preterite past tense than in any other tense, the good news is that Spanish makes up for it with a 99.99% regular Imperfect past tense!

Practice on the Web! Stem-changers!	More Practice! Spelling changes!	Still more! Ser and Ir!
The Regular Preterite	The Imperfect	The Preterite vs. the Imperfect past tense
Stem-changers in the Preterite	Back to the Verbs page!	Spelling (orthographic) changes in the Preterite