In Spanish, we conjugate (or change the endings) of verbs in order to say who is doing the action and when the action is done.

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Verb Conjugation

​There are many different tenses in Spanish and in English. Some tenses are used to describe present action, others describe past action, others describe future action, and still others describe possible or hypothetical action.

The preterite tense is one of the tenses that is used to describe past action. Specifically, it is used to talk about things that happened at a specific time in the past. All actions that are described using the preterite tense have a clear beginning and a clear end: they started and ended in the past.

They are completed actions.

Preterite Tense

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​ I went to the store.

We ate ice cream together. Did you find the book?

He ran in the track meet.

​EXAMPLES of Preterite Tense

There are also irregular verbs that do not follow the same conjugation patterns as regular verbs do.

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As always...

​Notice that the ‘nosotros’ ending is the same in both the present and preterite tenses. This means that you need to use context clues to determine which tense is being used when you read or hear a verb that ends in -amos.

​Regular -AR Preterite Endings

Notice that the endings of the verbs tell you WHO did the action and that the action was done in the PAST. The stem (the first, underlined part) of the verb tells you WHAT that person did.