Preterite Very irregular Verbs

Let’s take a look at each verb and its irregular stem. Are you ready?

venir becomes             vin- 
hacer becomes             hic- 
estar becomes              estuv-  
poder becomes            pud-
poner becomes            pus-
tener becomes             tuv-
saber becomes             sup-
querer becomes           quis-

Now let’s look at the endings that go along with these verbs:

yo	-e	nosotros	-imos
tú	-iste	vosotros (used only in Spain)	-isteis
él, ella, usted	-o	and finally, ellos, ellas, ustedes	-ieron

Now watch and see how it works. If I wanted to say “I came.” I would say “vine”

The phrase “She came” would be “vino”

 “We came” would be “vinimos”.

This works the same for every verb, but I’ll show you a few examples to help you better retain the concept.

The phrase “They put” would be “pusieron” and “Juana, you put” would be “pusiste”.

Now, we’ll look at four more verbs that have a slight variation. They are the verbs “traer”, “decir”, “conducir” and “traducir” which means “to translate”.

The stems of these words are: traduj-, traj-, dij-, and conduj-.  The variation I was talking about with these verbs is for “ellos, ellas, and uds.” instead of the “i-e-r-o-n” ending, it’s simply “e-r-o-n” or “eron”.

Let’s try a few. The phrase “I said” would be “dije”. The phrase “they said” would be “dijeron”.

To say “I translated” would be “traduje”  and “they, or all of you translated” would be “tradujeron”.

Now, let’s run through the irregular stems one more time and the endings. As we go over them, try to memorize them.

venir becomes	vin
Hacer becomes	hic
Estar becomes	estuv
Poder becomes	pud
poner becomes	pus
tener becomes	tuv
saber becomes	sup
querer becomes	quis
traer becomes	traj
decir becomes	dij
conducir becomes	conduj
traducir becomes	traduj

Now let’s take another look at the endings.

yo	-e	nosotros	-imos
tú	-iste	vosotros (used only in Spain)	-isteis
él, ella, usted	-o	ellos, ellas, ustedes	-ieron

Now, before we go to the practice session, we need to learn two more verbs that don’t fit into any category. They are the preterite, or “spine” form of the verbs “ir” and “ser”. Remember that “ir” means “to go” and “ser” means “to be”. The great thing is that the spine, or preterite conjugation of these verbs is the same. The only way to tell them apart is by the context in which they’re used.

Let’s take a look:

I was / I went is:	(yo)	fui	We were /  We went is:	(nosotros)	fuimos
(Juana) You were / You went is:	(tú)	fuiste	You were / You went (used only in Spain) is:	(vosotros)	fuisteis
He, she or you were / went is:	(él, ella, usted)	fue	They / All of you were or went is:	(ellos, ellas, ustedes)	fueron

As you just saw, the verb “fui” means either “I went” or “I was” depending on the context. Take one more look at these verbs and continue when you’re ready,

Moving on now, you can continue to the practice session. Otherwise, you can continue to review this section until you feel like you have a good grasp on it. Before we begin our practice session, there are a few new words that you need to learn.

The first one is

late,                             tarde 
early                           temprano 
earlier                         más temprano 
on time                        a tiempo
far                                lejos
fast                              rápido