4.6 Los verbos irregulares en el pretérito

By now we have learned the preterite past tense, including the conjugation of regular verbs, verbs with a spelling change to preserve their pronunciation, and stem-changing verbs. All of those groups of verbs use the same sets of endings (for -ar verbs or for -er / -ir verbs) in the preterite, but may change a stem vowel or consonant.

Now we will learn the irregular preterite verbs, which have irregular stems and irregular endings. You’ll note that none of the irregular preterite verbs have accent marks on their endings.

There are a lot of irregular verbs in the preterite, and you will need to pay close attention to small details that may change, for example, sometimes the 3rd person plural ending is “-eron” instead of “-ieron”. It may help to remember them in sub-groups that have similar (not always identical!) irregularities.

List of irregular preterite verbs:

Monumento a los caídos por España

• Andar (to walk) – anduve, anduviste, anduvo, anduvimos, anduvisteis, anduvieron
• Estar (to be) – estuve, estuviste, estuvo, estuvimos, estuvisteis, estuvieron
• Tener (to have) – tuve, tuviste, tuvo, tuvimos, tuvisteis, tuvieron

• Conducir (to drive) – conduje, condujiste, condujo, condujimos, condujisteis, condujeron
• Decir (to say, to tell) – dije, dijiste, dijo, dijimos, dijisteis, dijeron
• Traer (to bring) – traje, trajiste, trajo, trajimos, trajisteis, trajeron

• Poder (to be able) – pude, pudiste, pudo, pudimos, pudisteis, pudieron
• Poner (to put) – puse, pusiste, puso, pusimos, pusisteis, pusieron
• Saber (to know) – supe, supiste, supo, supimos, supisteis, supieron

• Dar (to give) – di, diste, dio, dimos, disteis, dieron
• Hacer (to make, to do) – hice, hiciste, hizo, hicimos, hicisteis, hicieron
• Querer (to want) – quise, quisiste, quiso, quisimos, quisisteis, quisieron
• Venir (to come) – vine, viniste, vino, vinimos, vinisteis, vinieron
• Ver (to see) – vi, viste, vio, vimos, visteis, vieron

• Ir (to go) – fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron
• Ser (to be) – fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fuisteis, fueron

Did you notice?

1. Which verbs lose the “i” in the third person plural, i.e. which ones have the “-eron” ending instead of –ieron?
2. Which of these irregular verbs is a good example of the spelling change rule, “z changes to c before i and before e”?
3. What’s the difference between the preterit conjugations of “ser” and of “ir”?