Grammar guide The rule
Irregular preterite verbs in Spanish
A group of everyday verbs takes a new stem in the preterite and a shared set of endings with no written accent: tuve, puse, hice.
The irregular stems
Learn the stem once; the endings are the same for the whole group.
- U stem
- tener, estar, poner, poder, saber, andar tuv-, estuv-, pus-, pud-, sup-, anduv-. Ayer tuve un examen. · El niño anduvo por el parque.
- I stem
- hacer, querer, venir hic-, quis-, vin-; hacer is spelled hizo in the third person. Hice la cena. · Ella hizo la cena.
- J stem
- decir, traer, -ducir verbs dij-, traj-, conduj-, traduj-; the third person plural ends in -eron, not -ieron. Me dijeron la verdad. · Tradujeron el libro.
- One-offs
- ser and ir, dar, ver Ser and ir share one preterite; dar takes -er endings; neither dar nor ver has an accent. fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fueron · di, dio · vi, vio
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Grammar topics explained
- Ser vs estar: when to use each in Spanish
- Preterite vs imperfect: when to use each in Spanish
- Por vs para: how to choose in Spanish
- Spanish subjunctive: when to use it
- Spanish direct object pronouns (lo, la, los, las)
- Spanish accent marks: when to write them
- Saber vs conocer: which “to know” to use
- Stem-changing verbs in Spanish (e→ie, o→ue, e→i)