Spanish Preterite Tense (Pretérito Indefinido): Uses and Endings

The Spanish preterite tense (pretérito indefinido) is the past tense for completed actions: things that happened at a specific moment and are over. Ayer comí con mis padres (Yesterday I had lunch with my parents). En 2019 viajamos a México (In 2019 we traveled to Mexico). If your sentence answers the question "what happened?", you most likely need the preterite.

You will see it under several names. Spanish textbooks call it pretérito indefinido or just indefinido, the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) uses pretérito perfecto simple, and some courses simply say "simple past". They all refer to the same forms: hablé, comí, viví (I spoke, I ate, I lived).

The first challenge for English speakers is that the Spanish past tense comes in two forms, the preterite and the imperfect, where English usually has one: "I ate" can be comí or comía depending on the meaning. The second is the list of irregular verbs, which looks long but follows four clear patterns.

On this page:

• when to use the preterite and signal words;
• regular endings, accent marks and spelling changes;
• irregular preterite verbs: ser and ir, new stems, j-stems and stem-changing -ir verbs;
• preterite vs imperfect and present perfect;
• common mistakes and example sentences;
• how to practice.

When to use the Spanish preterite

The preterite presents an action as a closed block: it has a beginning and an end, and you look at it from the outside, once it is over. How long it lasted does not matter. These are the main uses:

1. A completed action at a specific time. El lunes empecé un curso de cocina. (On Monday I started a cooking class.) Mi hermano se casó en 2018. (My brother got married in 2018.)
2. A sequence of events in a story. Each verb moves the story forward: Se levantó, se duchó y salió sin desayunar. (He got up, showered and left without breakfast.)
3. An action with a set duration, even a long one. Viví en Valencia diez años. (I lived in Valencia for ten years.) La reunión duró tres horas. (The meeting lasted three hours.)
4. An action repeated a specific number of times. Estuve en Cuba tres veces. (I was in Cuba three times.) Te llamé cinco veces. (I called you five times.)
5. An action that interrupts another one. The background goes in the imperfect and the interruption in the preterite: Estaba en la ducha cuando sonó el teléfono. (I was in the shower when the phone rang.)
6. The start of a state or a sudden reaction. English often says "got" or "became" here: Al ver la carta, se puso nervioso. (When he saw the letter, he got nervous.) En ese momento tuve miedo. (At that moment I got scared.)
7. A verdict on a finished event. El concierto fue increíble. (The concert was amazing.) ¿Te gustó la película? (Did you like the movie?)

One more tip: Spanish has no helper verb like "did". Questions and negatives use the preterite form itself: ¿Viste el partido? (Did you see the game?), No fui a clase. (I didn't go to class.)

Preterite signal words

Some time expressions frame an action as finished and usually go with the preterite. Treat them as a strong hint, not an absolute rule: the meaning of the sentence always comes first.

With hoy (today), esta semana (this week) and este año (this year), the choice depends on the region: see preterite vs present perfect below.

Spanish preterite endings for regular verbs

To conjugate a regular verb, drop the infinitive ending (-ar, -er, -ir) and add the preterite endings. -er and -ir verbs share one set, so there are only two sets to learn.

Preterite endings

Hablar, comer and vivir in the preterite

The nosotros form of -ar and -ir verbs is identical to the present tense: hablamos (we speak or we spoke), vivimos (we live or we lived). Context or a time word settles it: Ayer hablamos con ella (We talked to her yesterday). -er verbs are different: comemos (we eat), comimos (we ate).

Vosotros is used only in Spain. In Latin America, the Spanish most learners in the US hear every day, ustedes with the third-person plural form covers both formal and informal "you all": ¿Ustedes ya comieron? (Did you all eat already?)

Accent marks in the preterite

The yo and él/ella/usted forms of regular verbs are stressed on the last syllable and need a written accent: hablé, habló, comí, comió, viví, vivió. Leaving it out turns the word into a different form:

• hablo (I speak) vs habló (he spoke);
• hable (present subjunctive) vs hablé (I spoke);
• trabajo (I work, or "job") vs trabajó (she worked).

One-syllable forms never take an accent: vi, vio, di, dio, fui, fue. Under the RAE spelling rules of 2010, the same applies to rio (he laughed, from reír).

Spelling changes in the yo form: busqué, llegué, empecé

Verbs ending in -car, -gar and -zar change one letter in the yo form, so that the consonant keeps its sound before -é:

• c → qu: buscar → busqué (I looked for), sacar → saqué, tocar → toqué, explicar → expliqué;
• g → gu: llegar → llegué (I arrived), pagar → pagué, jugar → jugué;
• z → c: empezar → empecé (I started), comenzar → comencé, realizar → realicé.

Every other form is regular: buscaste, buscó, buscamos. This is a spelling rule, not an irregularity: the sound and the endings stay the same. That is why empezar and jugar, which are stem-changing in the present (empiezo, juego), are regular in the preterite: empezó, jugó.

i changes to y: leyó, cayó, oyó

When the stem ends in a vowel (le-er, ca-er, o-ír, constru-ir), the unstressed i of -ió and -ieron would sit between two vowels, so it is written y: leyó, leyeron (he read, they read), creyó (she believed), cayó (it fell), oyó, oyeron (he heard, they heard), construyó (he built).

The other forms take an accent on the í when the stem ends in a, e or o: leí, leíste, leímos, leísteis; caíste; oímos. Verbs ending in -uir don't: construiste, construimos. Again, these are spelling rules, not irregular verbs.

Irregular preterite verbs

After the present tense, the preterite has more irregular verbs than any other tense, and they include the most common verbs in Spanish: ser, ir, estar, tener, hacer, decir, poder. The good news is that nearly all of them fall into four groups. Each group below lists the most frequent verbs with their key forms; click a verb to see its full conjugation.

Ser and ir in the preterite, plus dar and ver

Ser (to be) and ir (to go) have identical preterite forms: fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron. Context tells you which verb it is: Fue un día muy largo (It was a very long day) vs Fue a la farmacia (She went to the pharmacy). With ir, a destination with a usually follows.

Dar (to give) is an -ar verb but takes the -er/-ir endings in the preterite: di, diste, dio (I gave, you gave, he gave), not *daste. Ver (to see) is actually regular here; just note that vi and vio have no accent.

Strong preterites: tuve, hice, puse

About a dozen very common verbs use a new stem and their own set of endings, none of which has a written accent: -e, -iste, -o, -imos, -isteis, -ieron. In yo and él the stress falls on the stem, so there is no written accent: tuve, tuvo, never *tuvé or *tuvó. Grammar books call them strong preterites (pretéritos fuertes). These are the stems to memorize:

• estar → estuv-, tener → tuv-, andar → anduv-;
• poder → pud-, poner → pus-, saber → sup-, caber → cup-, haber → hub-;
• querer → quis-, venir → vin-, hacer → hic-.

Hacer has one extra spelling detail: in the él form, c becomes z before o to keep the sound, so it is hizo (he did), never *hico. Compound verbs follow their base verb: mantener → mantuve, obtener → obtuve (I obtained), suponer → supuse, componer → compuse, deshacer → deshice. From haber, the form you will actually use is hubo (there was, there were) for events: Hubo un accidente en la autopista (There was an accident on the highway).

J-stem verbs: dije, traje, conduje

Decir (dij-), traer (traj-) and verbs ending in -ducir (conducir → conduj-, producir → produj-, traducir → traduj-, reducir → reduj-) work like the strong preterites with one difference: the ellos/ustedes form ends in -eron, with no i. It is dijeron (they said), trajeron (they brought), condujeron (they drove), produjeron (they produced). *Dijieron is a mistake you will hear even from native speakers.

Stem-changing -ir verbs: pidió, durmió

-ir verbs that change their stem in the present (pedir → pido, sentir → siento, dormir → duermo) also change in the preterite, but only in the third person (él/ella/usted and ellos/ellas/ustedes), and in a different way: e becomes i, and o becomes u.

• e → i: pedir → pidió, pidieron (asked for); sentir → sintió, sintieron (felt); seguir → siguió (followed); servir → sirvió (served); preferir → prefirió; repetir → repitió;
• o → u: dormir → durmió, durmieron (slept); morir → murió, murieron (died).

The other forms are regular: pedí, pediste, pedimos. Stem-changing -ar and -er verbs have no stem change in the preterite at all: pensar → pensó (thought), volver → volvió (came back), entender → entendió (understood). Poder and querer are the exception only because they are strong preterites: pudo, quiso.

Not irregular: spelling changes

Forms like busqué, llegué, empecé, leyó and oyó look irregular, but their endings are regular; only the spelling adjusts to keep the sound (see regular verbs above). The same groups for every other tense are on Spanish irregular verbs by tense.

Preterite vs imperfect and present perfect

Spanish has three everyday ways to talk about the past, and most doubts come from choosing between them. In both comparisons below, the key is how the speaker frames the action, not how long it lasted.

Preterite vs imperfect

The preterite tells what happened: a finished event, like a snapshot. The imperfect (hablaba, comía) describes what things were like or what used to happen: the scene, habits, actions in progress. English "used to", "would" for habits and "was/were + -ing" almost always point to the imperfect.

Full rules, signal words for both tenses and an interactive quiz that explains every answer: preterite vs imperfect in Spanish. Conjugation of the other tense: Spanish imperfect.

Verbs that change meaning in the preterite

With a few verbs, the preterite changes the English translation, not just the time frame:

Preterite vs present perfect

The present perfect (he comido, I have eaten) also describes finished actions. In most of Spain the choice depends on the time frame: a finished period (ayer, el año pasado) takes the preterite, while a period that includes now (hoy, esta semana, este año) takes the present perfect.

In most of Latin America the preterite also covers the recent past, much like American English: ¿Comiste hoy? (Did you eat today?), ¿Ya terminaste? (Did you finish already?). The present perfect is kept for experiences and situations that continue up to now: Nunca he estado en Europa (I have never been to Europe).

More on the other tense: Spanish present perfect.

Common preterite mistakes

1. *hico → hizo. The c of hacer becomes z before o: hice, hiciste, hizo.
2. *dijieron, *trajieron, *produjieron → dijeron, trajeron, produjeron. After a j-stem, the ellos ending is -eron.
3. *andé, *andó → anduve, anduvo. Andar (to walk) is a strong preterite, like estar. Watch out for *cabí → cupe and *conducí → conduje too.
4. *vió, *fué, *dió, *tuvó → vio, fue, dio, tuvo. One-syllable forms have no accent, and neither do strong preterites: pude, puso, hizo.
5. *Ayer yo hable con ella, *Ayer él hablo con su madre → Ayer hablé con ella (I talked to her yesterday), Ayer habló con su madre (He talked to his mother yesterday). Without the accent, hable is subjunctive and hablo is "I speak". The accent changes both tense and person.
6. *pedió, *dormió → pidió, durmió. Stem-changing -ir verbs switch e → i and o → u in the third person. The opposite trap: -ar and -er verbs keep their stem, so it is pensó, not *piensó.
7. *De niño jugué en el parque cada tarde → De niño jugaba en el parque cada tarde (As a kid I played in the park every afternoon). If English could say "used to", Spanish needs the imperfect.

Spanish preterite examples

• Ayer hablé con mi jefe sobre las vacaciones. (Yesterday I talked to my boss about my vacation.)
• ¿Viste el partido anoche? (Did you see the game last night?)
• Mi abuela nació en Oaxaca. (My grandmother was born in Oaxaca.)
• Usted pidió una ensalada, ¿verdad? (You ordered a salad, right?)
• El año pasado fuimos a Perú y subimos a Machu Picchu. (Last year we went to Peru and climbed Machu Picchu.)
• ¿Por qué no me dijisteis nada? (Why didn't you guys tell me anything? Spain only.)
• Los niños durmieron toda la noche. (The kids slept through the night.)
• ¿Ustedes llegaron a tiempo al aeropuerto? (Did you all get to the airport on time?)
• Tuve que trabajar el sábado. (I had to work on Saturday.)
• ¿Quién hizo este pastel? (Who made this cake?)
• Leyeron el contrato y lo firmaron. (They read the contract and signed it.)
• Busqué las llaves por toda la casa. (I looked for the keys all over the house.)

How to learn the Spanish preterite

Start with the two sets of regular endings. Then learn the irregular verbs as yo/él pairs (tuve/tuvo, hice/hizo, dije/dijo, fui/fue, pude/pudo): the other forms follow from them. A bonus: the ellos form of the preterite is the base of the imperfect subjunctive (tuvieron → tuviera, dijeron → dijera), so every form you learn here pays off twice.

To lock in the usage, write five sentences every evening about what you did that day: Me levanté a las siete, desayuné, fui al trabajo… (I got up at seven, had breakfast, went to work…). To make the forms automatic you need repetition: in the trainer you pick the preterite, the verbs and the persons, and practice until the forms come without thinking.

Related pages: the other past tenses, Spanish imperfect, present perfect and past perfect, plus preterite vs imperfect with a quiz. Keep going with the present tense, the simple future, Spanish irregular verbs, the 100 most common Spanish verbs and all Spanish verb tenses.