The Preterite past tense in Spanish

The Preterite is the first past tense we'll learn. Up until now we can say that "I arrest you", "I am arresting you", and "I am going to arrest you." But now we will learn how to say "Last night, I arrested that guy."

The Preterite is the past action tense.

In other words, you can say what Happened or occurred. It is not used to describe people (He was tall...) nor to describe or set scenes (It was a dark and stormy night and I was watching television...)

Rather, the Preterite answers the question ¿Qué pasó? What happened?

¡Pasó la señal de alto sin parar!	He passed a stop sign without stopping!
¡El ladrón entró por la ventana!	The robber entered through the window!
¡Me robaron el carro y todo mi dinero!	They stole (robbed me of) my car and all my money!

The Preterite past tense represents an action that is located in a specific point of a time line and is considered a completed action. It is always used when listing a series of consecutive actions:

Él llamó a su novia, salió de la casa y manejó al cine.

He called his girlfriend, left the house and drove to the movies.

It also is used for when you begin, finish or become something:

Empezó a llorar.	He began to cry.
Terminó el examen.	He finished the test.
Me puse enojada [or] Me enojé.	I became angry.

NOTE: the Preterite isn't used to decribe an existing emotional state, like "He was angry". Then we use a different past tense which is called the Imperfect past tense.

Estaba enojada cuando entró Ana en la sala

I was angry when Ana entered the room.

This sentence is a description of how someone was feeling (not an action).

But, back to the Preterite!

Let's take a look at the basic endings we use when we conjugate verbs into the Preterite. Notice that the endings for -Er verbs and -Ir verbs are the same.

	AR VERBS	ER/IR VERBS
Yo	é	í
Tú	aste	iste
Él, ella, usted	ó	ió
Nosotros	amos	imos
Ellos, ellas, ustedes	aron	ieron

Examples:

	Yo	Tú	Él	Nosotros	Ellos
Hablar	hablé	hablaste	habló	hablamos	hablaron
Comer	comí	comiste	comió	comimos	comieron
Vivir	Viví	viviste	vivió	vivimos	vivieron

The Nosotros form in the Preterite is the same as the Nosotros in the Present Tense for "-Ar" and "-Ir" verbs. Context will tell you which tense is correct.

The Nosotros forms of "-Er" verbs follow the "-Ir" conjugation.

The Preterite 3rd person plural (ellos, ellas, ustedes) ends in "-ron".

The Preterite past tense in Spanish

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The Preterite is the past action tense.

The Preterite past tense represents an action that is located in a specific point of a time line and is considered a completed action. It is always used when listing a series of consecutive actions:

NOTE: the Preterite isn't used to decribe an existing emotional state, like "He was angry". Then we use a different past tense which is called the Imperfect past tense.

Let's take a look at the basic endings we use when we conjugate verbs into the Preterite. Notice that the endings for -Er verbs and -Ir verbs are the same.