Preterite of ar verbs in Spanish

Until now, we have learned verbs in the present tense in Spanish. There were many rules for those verbs, ranging from stem changes to irregular forms. During this unit, we are going to learn a new verb tense. In Spanish, there are two past tenses. The one we will focus on for our unit is the preterite. The preterite is the past tense in Spanish that is used to talk about actions that occurred once in the past. To start, we are going to look at ar verbs only. Ar verbs are verbs that end in ar in the infinitive form. Ex. Hablar-to speak

To form the preterite, follow these steps: 1. Drop the ar 2. Add the appropriate ar verb endings for the preterite.

STEP 1: Hablar Yo habl T habl Usted/l/ella habl nosotros habl vosotros habl Ustedes/ellos/ellas habl

STEP 2: Hablar Yo habl T hablaste Usted/l/ella habl nosotros hablamos vosotros hablasteis Ustedes/ellos/ellas hablaron

This translates to I spoke You spoke You formal Spoke He/She Spoke We spoke yall spoke yall spoke They spoke

This works for all regular ar preterite verbs!

Ex. Yo habl con mi mama.-I spoke to my mama. Ella cant en la iglesia.-She sang at church.