Preterite Two Verbs

The first verb is conjugated in the spine tense, and the second verb is left in its infinitive form. (In other words, it isn’t conjugated.) For example, if you wanted to say “I went to eat”, you would say “(Yo) fui a comer”. Remember the “yo” is optional.

The phrase “I had to go” would be “Tuve que ir”.

And finally, the phrase “I couldn’t hear” would be “No pude oír”.

Notice that in each of these examples, the first verb is conjugated in the spine tense and the second verb is not conjugated.

Now, we’ll take a look at a unique irregular verb before we practice. It’s the verb “gustar”. To say, “I liked the book” we would say “Me gustó el libro”. As I’ve mentioned before, “gustar” is an irregular verb. Because it’s conjugated backwards, you are literally saying “the book pleased me”. Even if you said, “I, you, he, she we, or they liked the book”, you would always use “gustó”.  

Me
Te
Le                                gustó el libro 
Nos
Les

Just like you learned in the present tense section, if we’re talking about liking more than one thing, we have to change gustar. For the past or spine tense, we change it to: “gustaron”. For example if I said, “I, you, he, she we, or they liked the books (plural)”, you would use “gustaron”.

Me
Te
Le                                gustaron los libros 
Nos
Les 

Preterite Reflexive Verbs

Remember, if you’re taking a class, your teacher will call “spine” verbs “preterite” verbs. Reflexive Spine verbs are conjugated just like normal spine verbs and as usual, when there’s just one verb, the reflexive pronoun (me, te, se, or nos) goes in front.

Let’s take a look at a few examples:

I bathed yesterday	Me bañé ayer
She got tired last night	Se cansó anoche
They brushed their hair	Se cepillaron el pelo
We dried our hands	Nos secamos las manos
They shaved earlier	Se afeitaron más temprano
She worried about him	Se preocupó por él

Before we have an official practice, there are a few irregulars in the reflexive spine group that you need to know about. They have stem changes. Let’s take a look at them here. As with other irregulars, the best way to remember them is to hear them enough that you tune your ear to the right way of saying them. As with other irregular spine verbs, they are just irregular on the bottom row of conjugations.

Are you ready? We’ll start with the verb despedirse (to say goodbye)

(Yo)	me despedí	(Nosotros)	nos despedimos
(Tú)	te despediste	(Vosotros-Spain)	os despedisteis
(El, Ella, Ud.)	se despidió	(Ellos, Ellas, Uds)	se despidieron

The second reflexive verb is sentirse (to feel well or ill)

(Yo)	me sentí	(Nosotros)	nos sentimos
(Tú)	te sentiste	(Vosotros)	os sentisteis
(El, Ella, Ud.)	se sintió	(Ellos, Ellas, Uds)	se sintieron

The third reflexive verb of this type is divertirse (to have fun)

(Yo)	me divertí	(Nosotros)	nos divertimos
(Tú)	te divertiste	(Vosotros)	os divertisteis
(El, Ella, Ud.)	se divirtió	(Ellos, Ellas, Uds)	se divertieron

The fourth irregular reflexive verb of this type is caerse (to fall down)

(Yo)	me caí	(Nosotros)	nos caímos
(Tú)	te caíste	(Vosotros)	os caísteis
(El, Ella, Ud.)	se cayó	(Ellos, Ellas, Uds)	se cayeron

The fifth irregular reflexive verb is vestirse (to get dressed)

(Yo)	me vestí	(Nosotros)	nos vestimos
(Tú)	te vestiste	(Vosotros)	os vestisteis
(El, Ella, Ud.)	se vistió	(Ellos, Ellas, Uds)	se vistieron

There is actually one more irregular reflexive verb. It is the verb “darse cuenta” or “to realize”.  You already learned earlier how to conjugate “dar” in the spine, or preterite tense earlier, but we’ll take another quick look at it to help refresh your memory.

(Yo)	me dí cuenta	(Nosotros)	nos dimos cuenta
(Tú)	te diste cuenta	(Vosotros)	os disteis cuenta
(El, Ella, Ud.)	se dio cuenta	(Ellos, Ellas, Uds)	se dieron cuenta

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