In this lesson we’re going to look at how to conjugate the preterite of regular Spanish verbs. The Preterite is the simple past form of a Spanish verb. Like the English simple past tense, the preterite expresses a fact or action that took place at one moment in the past and ended in the past.

Recall from our lesson on present tense regular verbs that Spanish infinitives consist of two parts: the root and the infinitive ending. The infinitives belong to three groups determined by their endings: -ar, -er, and –ir. The preterite of a regular Spanish verbs is made by removing the infinitive ending and replacing it with an ending corresponding with who or what is performing the action.

The Preterite of Regular –AR Verbs

 

Example: comprar – to buy.

Pronoun	Ending	Conjugation	Translation
yo	é	compré	I bought
tú	aste	compraste	you bought
él, ella, usted	ó	compró	he/she bought, you bought
nosotros, nosotras	amos	compramos	we bought
vosotros, vosotras	asteis	comprasteis	you bought
ellos, ellas, ustedes	aron	comparon	they bought

 

The Preterite of Regular –ER and –IR Verbs

The endings for the preterite tenses of regular –er and ­–ir verbs are the same.

Example: comer – to eat.

 

Pronoun	Ending	Conjugation	Translation
yo	í	comí	I ate
tú	iste	comiste	you ate
él, ella, usted	ió	comió	he/she ate, you ate
nosotros, nosotras	imos	comimos	we ate
vosotros, vosotras	isteis	comisteis	you ate
ellos, ellas, ustedes	ieron	comieron	they ate

Example: partir – to leave.

 

Pronoun	Ending	Conjugation	Translation
yo	í	partí	I left
tú	iste	partiste	you left
él, ella, usted	ió	partió	he/she left, you left
nosotros, nosotras	imos	partimos	we left
vosotros, vosotras	isteis	partisteis	you left
ellos, ellas, ustedes	ieron	partieron	they left

 

Notes: The first and third person singular forms contain accent marks. For clarity, the third person singular and plural tend to be used with their subjects. The nosotros/nosotras forms are the same in the present and preterite tenses. Which one you are dealing with depends on the context of the sentence and (sometimes) the inclusion of an adverb.