The Preterite

The Preterite is the first past tense you will learn. Up until now you could say that "I arrest you", "I am arresting you", and "I am going to arrest you." But now we will learn how to say "Last night, I arrested that guy."

The Preterite is the past action tense. In other words, you can say what Happened. It is not used to describe people (He was tall...) nor to describe or set scenes (It was a dark and stormy night and I was watching television...) Rather, the Preterite answers the question ¿Qué pasó? What happened?

¡Pasó la señal de alto sin parar!	He passed a stop sign without stopping!
¡El ladrón entró por la ventana!	The robber entered through the window!
¡Me robaron el carro y todo mi dinero!	They stole (robbed me of) my car and all my money!

The Preterite past tense represents an action that is located in a specific point of a time line and is considered a completed action. It is always used when listing a series of consecutive actions:

Él llamó a su novia, salió de la casa y manejó al cine.

He called his girlfriend, left the house and drove to the movies.

It also is used for when you begin, finish or become something:

Empezó a llorar.	He began to cry.
Terminó el examen.	He finished the test.
Me puse enojada [or] Me enojé.	I became angry.

NOTE: the Preterite isn't used to decribe an existing emotional state, like "He was angry". Then we use a different past tense which is called the Imperfect past tense.

Estaba enojada cuando entró Ana en la sala

I was angry when Ana entered the room.

This sentence decribes how someone was feeling.

But, back to the Preterite! Let's take a look at the basic endings we use when we conjugate verbs into the Preterite.

	AR VERBS	IR/ER VERBS
Yo	é	í
Tú	aste	iste
Él, ella, usted	ó	ió
Nosotros	amos	imos
Ellos, ellas, ustedes	aron	ieron

Examples:

	Yo	Tú	Él	Nosotros	Ellos
Hablar	hablé	hablaste	habló	hablamos	hablaron
Comer	comí	comiste	comió	comimos	comieron
Vivir	Viví	viviste	vivió	vivimos	vivieron

Note:

The Nosotros form in the Preterite is the same as the Nosotros in the Present Tense for "-ar" and "-ir" verbs. "-Er" verbs follow the "-ir" pattern.
The Preterite 3rd person plural (ellos, ellas, ustedes) ends in "-ron".

Spelling Changes in the Preterite

Changes in Meaning in the Preterite

Stem-Changers in the Preterite

Preterite irregulars!

Practice conjugating the preterite on the web!	Dicho y Hecho 7th edition Chapter 5 Preterite Challenge Board	Imperfect past tense	Back to the Verbs page!
Practice all the forms of the Preterite including the Irregulars. Choose from a selection of exercises.	Practice all the Preterite forms (regular and Irregular) alone or with another student on the Preterite forms Challenge Board	Preterite vs. Imperfect past tenses