Common irregular preterites

What you’ll learn

• Recognize ser and ir's shared preterite forms.
• Use common irregular stems and endings.
• Notice spelling patterns in hizo and dijeron.

Fui can mean I was or I went

Ser and ir share the preterite forms fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis and fueron. The surrounding words identify the verb's meaning. Fui al museo describes movement to a destination; la visita fue interesante describes the visit as a whole. Learn the forms together, then ask what role the verb plays in the sentence.

Ver and dar also have short frequent forms: vi, viste, vio, vimos, visteis, vieron; di, diste, dio, dimos, disteis, dieron. Forms such as fue, vio and dio do not take written accents. Their brevity does not make them present tense; rely on the whole sentence and its time context.

Learn an irregular stem plus endings

Many frequent verbs use a new preterite stem: tener→tuv-, estar→estuv-, poder→pud-, poner→pus-, venir→vin- and hacer→hic-. The common endings are -e, -iste, -o, -imos, -isteis and -ieron. They do not carry the regular preterite's written accents: tuve, tuvo, tuvimos.

Hacer changes spelling in hizo to keep its sound pattern. Decir uses dij- and dijeron, with -eron after the j stem; traer similarly gives trajeron. Learn these high-frequency exceptions in short scenes. Do not guess an irregular form by combining a present stem with a regular preterite ending.

Useful vocabulary

tuve

I had

hice

I did / made

dijeron

they said / told

Common mistakes

• Do not add an accent to fue, vio or dio.
• Use hizo rather than hico or hació.
• After the dij- stem, the plural is dijeron, not dijieron.

Keep these ideas

• Ser and ir share preterite forms; context identifies meaning.
• Several irregular verbs share a stem-plus-ending pattern.
• Keep frequent spelling exceptions in useful examples.

Use it in your life

Write a past-day account with a destination, an activity and something someone said. Use ir, hacer and decir in the preterite.

Read it in context

Look for this lesson’s ideas in a complete Spanish story. Read the passage first, then use its translations to check your understanding.