The preterite tense of regular verbs The Preterite

The preterite tense of regular verbs

The Preterite Tense 1. The preterite tense is used to discuss completed actions in the past. ie. . . Yesterday he ATE the sandwich. 2. The preterite tense is a simple tense meaning it is made up of just one word. ie. . . Ayer él COMIÓ el sandwich. 3. The preterite tense is only one of two past tenses in Spanish.

PRETERITE used to express: actions, events or states viewed as completed in the past • Las clases comenzaron la semana pasada. • Ayer comí en Wendy’s. • Esta mañana salí de casa a las ocho de la mañana.

To conjugate a verb in the preterite tense follow these 3 steps:

1. Take the infinitive form of the verb: estudiar 2. Drop the –ar (infinitive) ending to get the stem: estudi 3. Add preterite endings to the stem for the desired form

Preterite endings –ar yo -é tú -aste Ud. /él/ella -ó nosotros/-as -amos vosotros/-as -asteis Uds. /ellos/ellas -aron for: -er/-ir -í -iste -ió -imos -isteis -ieron

No stem changes for –ar or –er verbs empezar (e: ie) Las clases empezaron la semana pasada.

Orthographic Spelling Changes * Remember that you CANNOT change the sound of a letter by conjugating. Orthographic spelling changes will regularly occur in AR verbs whose stems end in Car, Gar, or Zar. Car Q Gar GU Zar C

Spelling changes in the 1 st person singular (yo) for verbs ending in: -car > -qué (yo busqué) -gar > -gué (yo llegué) -zar > -cé (yo empecé)

Other verbs with spelling changes: creer, leer, oír, caer yo tú Ud. /él/ella nosotros/-as vosotros/-as Uds. /ellos/ellas cre-íste cre-yó cre-ímos cre-ísteis cre-yeron

Expressions commonly used with the preterite: ayer anteayer anoche anteanoche de repente desde… hasta…

el/la … pasado/a el año pasado la semana pasada una vez dos veces ya [already] todavía no [not yet]

Practice……… caminar (to walk) PDL 1. IHe 6. walked spoke caminé habló dibujar (to draw) 2. She 7. You (pl) watched walked miró caminaron hablar (to speak) 3. They 8. I worked trabajaron trabajé mirar (to watch) trabajar (to work) 4. We watched 9. drew dibujamos miramos 5. You 10. I drew (sg) spoke hablaste dibujé

Practice……… PDL ©CAS 2002 romper (to break) 6. We Youran (pl) broke 1. rompieron corrimos correr (to run) 7. He Sheate discussed 2. comer (to eat) 8. IWe ate 3. chose discutió comimos elegí elegir (to choose) 9. You I ran(sg) broke 4. discutir (to discuss) 10. They You discussed (sg) chose 5. corrí rompiste elegiste discutieron