Простий минулий час (pretérito indefinido): правильні дієслова

The preterite (pretérito indefinido) is the Spanish past tense for finished events: what happened yesterday, last summer, in 1992. It translates the English simple past - "I spoke", "she ate" - in most of its uses.

Ayer hablé con mi madre. El sábado comimos paella en la playa de la Malvarrosa. Mis abuelos vivieron veinte años en Buenos Aires.

Two sets of endings, not three

-er and -ir verbs share exactly the same preterite endings: comí / viví, comiste / viviste, comió / vivió. So you learn the -ar set and one other.

The accent changes the tense

The yo and él / ella forms carry a written accent on the last syllable, and it matters: it moves the stress and turns the word into a different form.

• hablo (stress on HA) - I speak, present
• habló (stress on BLO) - he / she spoke, preterite

Say Hablo con Juan and you are talking about now; say Habló con Juan and someone else did it yesterday. Leaving off the accent in writing, or the stress in speech, is the commonest preterite error English speakers make.

Same as the present: nosotros

For -ar and -ir verbs the nosotros form is identical to the present: hablamos is "we speak" and "we spoke", vivimos "we live" and "we lived". A time word sorts it out: Ayer hablamos con el profesor. -er verbs keep them apart: comemos (present), comimos (preterite).

Spelling changes in the yo form

To keep the sound of the stem before -é, some -ar verbs change a letter in yo only: buscar → busqué, llegar → llegué, empezar → empecé. Pronunciation does not change; it is a spelling rule.

Preterite or present perfect?

In Spain, events of "today" or "this week" usually take the present perfect (Hoy he comido en casa), and the preterite is for yesterday and earlier (Ayer comí en casa). In Latin America and the Canary Islands the preterite covers both. You will meet this contrast properly at A2.