The Preterite Tense FOR REGULAR VERBS ONLY -Practice Drills!

Formation

The preterite is a form of simple past. In English, the preterite is expressed as follows:

I ate
you ate
he ate
we ate
they ate

Because in English TO EAT is an irregular verb, the preterite form of the verb changes. On the other hand, a regular verb just adds 'ed' at the end:


I wanted
you wanted
he wanted
she wanted
they wanted
we wanted


Note that there are some other ways in which you will see 'ed' at the end of a verb that is not preterite: 


----He have been wanted for a few years


This is not preterite. Remember, preterite is a simple past, meaning that it is composed of just a noun/pronoun and a conjugated verb (and of course the end of a sentence/what ever you want to say which has no impact on the noun/pronoun +verb combo): I expressed.


Now, lets look at how to go about conjugating Spanish verbs to the preterite tense:


First thing to always keep in mind is that there are regular and irregular verbs and each conjugate differently. In this note, only regular verb preterite conjugation is discussed. Know you regular verbs in Spanish, you do not want to be conjugating irregular verbs in the way we are about to discuss.

Furthermore, Spanish verbs are broken down in three groups: 'ar' 'er' and 'ir' endings and their conjugations are different.


There are 2 sets of conjugations for regular verbs in the preterite tense.

This tense is formed by adding the endings to the stem of the verb.

Here are the endings for regular verbs that end in -ar.

	singular	plural
first person	é	amos
second person	aste	asteis
third person	ó	aron

yo hablé
tú hablaste
él/ella/usted habló
nosotros hablamos
vosotros hablasteis
ellos/ellas/ustedes hablaron

Here are the endings for regular verbs that end in -er or -ir.

	singular	plural
first person	í	imos
second person	iste	isteis
third person	ió	ieron

yo bebí
tú bebiste
él/ella/usted bebió
nosotros bebimos
vosotros bebisteis
ellos/ellas/ustedes bebieron

Usage

The preterite tense is a past tense used to describe actions that lasted for a specific amount of time. In other words, the action had a completion point. (This is in contrast with the imperfect tense, which describes habitual, continuous actions in the past.)

Carlos llegó hace dos días.  Carlos arrived two days ago.Ellas comieron las galletas ayer.  They ate the cookies yesterday.



TRY THE FOLLOWING PRACTICE SENTENCES (No peeking!)

I ATE AN APPLE


YOU WROTE A POEM


HE SANG A SONG


WE PRACTICED FOR TWO HOURS


THEY RUN AFTER SCHOOL


YOU WALKED A LOT


YOU WATCHED TV


THEY STUDIED MATH


HE WASHED THE CAR


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RESPUESTAS 

yo comi una manzana
tu escribiste un poema
el canto una cancion
nosotros practicamos por dos horas
ellos corrieron despues de la escuela
tu caminaste mucho
tu miraste la television
ellos estudiaron matematicas
el lavo el carro