One of the hardest aspects of the Preterite past tense in Spanish is conjugating the irregular verbs. They’re irregular by nature, which means they don’t necessarily follow any helpful patterns of conjugation.
In last week’s lesson, we looked at Regular Preterite tense conjugations and the uses of the Preterite tense in Spanish following the SPICY acronym. This week’s lesson is focused solely on irregular conjugations.
Here is the lesson I taught for Video Viernes this week on irregular Preterite tense verbs in medical Spanish:
Here are a handful of irregular verbs in the Preterite tense that you may find useful in clinical conversations:
- Andar – to walk
- Creer – to believe
- Dar – to give
- Decir – to say/tell
- Estar – to be
- Hacer – to do/make
- Ir – to go
- Leer – to read
- Oír – to hear
- Poder – to be able to (& act)
- Poner – to put/place
- Querer – to want (& act on it)
- Saber – to find out (the action)
- Ser – to be
- Tener – to have (“receive”)
- Traer – to bring
- Venir – to come
Some irregular preterite past tense verbs have a modified stem with some patterned endings. You simply add these endings to the new stem of the verb:
yo … e
tú … aste
él/ella/usted … o
nosotros … imos
ellos/ellas/ustedes … ieron
There are 9 verbs that take on a new stem with the above patterned endings:
Other Irregular Preterite verbs that don’t fit the pattern above are listed below:
Dar = to give:
- Di
- Diste
- Dio
- Dimos
- Dieron
Ser = to be:
- Fui
- Fuiste
- Fue
- Fuimos
- Fueron
Decir = to say/tell:
- Dije
- Dijiste
- Dijo
- Dijimos
- Dijeron
Ir = to go:
- Fui
- Fuiste
- Fue
- Fuimos
- Fueron
Traer = to bring:
- Traje
- Trajiste
- Trajo
- Trajimos
- Trajeron
These 4 irregular Preterite tense verbs are only irregular in the 3rd person singular (él/ella/usted) and plural forms (ellos/ellas/ustedes)
Creer = to believe
- Creí
- Creíste
- Creyó
- Creímos
- Creyeron
Leer = to read
- Leí
- Leíste
- Leyó
- Leímos
- Leyeron
Oír = to hear
- Oí
- Oíste
- Oyó
- Oímos
- Oyeron
Caer = to fall
- Caí
- Caíste
- Cayó
- Caímos
- Cayeron
Here are the lyrics to the goofy song that our special guest sang:
Fui (ser), Fui (ir), Dije (decir), Vine (venir)
Tuve (tener), Hice (hacer), Puse (poner)
Estuve (estar) , Quise (querer), Pude (poder), Supe (saber)
Traje (traer), Anduve (andar), Di (dar)
Learn the irregular Preterite tense verbs with this Quizlet activity:
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