In short

The preterite (pretérito indefinido) is the tense for completed past actions seen as a whole: Ayer comí paella. Learn the regular -é / -í endings, a few spelling tweaks in the yo form, and a compact set of strong irregular stems (tuve, hice, fui).

The rule

Use the preterite for an action that is finished and viewed as a single, bounded event: Ayer comí paella (Yesterday I ate paella). It’s the tense for narrating a sequence of past events - Me levanté, desayuné y salí de casa - and it pairs with finished-time markers: ayer, anoche, la semana pasada, el año pasado, en 2010, hace dos años.

Regular endings. Drop the -ar/-er/-ir and add the endings. Crucially, -er and -ir share the same endings:

The yo (-é/-í) and él (-ó/-ió) forms carry a written accent - miss it and you change the person or tense. (Note hablamos / vivimos look identical to the present; context decides.)

Spelling change in the yo form. To keep the sound, -car/-gar/-zar verbs adjust before the -é:

• -car -> -qué: buscar -> busqué, tocar -> toqué
• -gar -> -gué: llegar -> llegué, pagar -> pagué
• -zar -> -cé: empezar -> empecé, cruzar -> crucé

i -> y in the 3rd person. In -er/-ir verbs whose stem ends in a vowel, the unstressed i becomes y: leer -> leyó, leyeron; oír -> oyó, oyeron; caer -> cayó, cayeron. The other persons keep the i, but after a stem in a, e or o it makes a syllable of its own and takes an accent: leí, leíste, leísteis; oí, oímos, oísteis.

Forms & patterns

Strong preterites. A key group has an irregular stem plus a special set of unaccented endings (-e, -iste, -o, -imos, -isteis, -ieron):

hacer becomes hizo (c -> z before o). Stems ending in -j (decir, traer, conducir -> conduje) drop the i in the ellos form: dijeron, trajeron (not “dijieron”). A verb built on one of these keeps its stem: proponer -> propuse, obtener -> obtuve, mantener -> mantuve, atraer -> atraje; and every verb in -ducir follows conducir: traducir -> traduje, tradujeron.

Fully irregular. ser and ir share one preterite (context tells them apart); dar and ver are short:

fui, fue, di, dio, vi, vio are single syllables, so they take no written accent: dio, never dió; fue, never fué; vio, never vió.

Examples

Common mistakes

• hablo vs habló - hablo = “I speak” (present), habló = “he spoke” (preterite); the final accent is the whole difference.
• hació -> hizo - hacer is strong (stem hic-/hiz-), so the él form is hizo, not regular “hació”.
• tení / poní -> tuve / puse - don’t add regular endings to the normal stem; strong verbs use their special stem with unaccented endings.
• dijieron -> dijeron - a j-stem (decir, traer, conducir) drops the i in the ellos form.
• llegé -> llegué - -gar verbs insert u before -é to keep the hard g sound.
• leó -> leyó - between two vowels the unstressed i becomes y.
• oisteis -> oísteis - outside the third person the i stays, and after a stem in a, e or o it needs its accent (leí, leíste, oímos).

Tips

• Two accent slots on the regular paradigms: -é (yo) and -ó (él/ella). They are not optional.
• Strong preterites are unstressed on the last syllable - tuve/tuvo, hice/hizo, vine/vino - so no written accent, unlike hablé/habló; no accent either on the one-syllable fui, fue, di, dio, vi, vio.
• Learn ser and ir as one set: their preterite is identical (fui, fuiste, fue…).
• The -car/-gar/-zar spelling swap hits only the yo form (busqué, llegué, empecé); the rest are regular.
• Reach for the preterite when the action is done and dated: ayer, anoche, la semana pasada, el año pasado.