The Preterite Tense: Regular -AR Verbs

Spanish: El Pretérito Indefinido: Verbos Regulares en -AR

Level: A2 Elementary

Category: verbs

Explanation

The preterite (pretérito indefinido) is one of the most important past tenses in Spanish. We use it to talk about completed actions in the past, that is, actions that started and finished at a specific moment. For example: "Ayer hablé con María" (Yesterday I spoke with María) or "Anoche cené en un restaurante" (Last night I had dinner at a restaurant). To form the preterite of regular verbs ending in -AR, we remove the -AR ending from the infinitive and add the preterite endings. For example, from the verb "hablar" we remove -AR and we are left with the stem "habl-". To this stem we add: -é, -aste, -ó, -amos, -asteis, -aron. So the verb "hablar" is conjugated: yo hablé (I spoke), tú hablaste (you spoke), él/ella habló (he/she spoke), nosotros hablamos (we spoke), vosotros hablasteis (you all spoke), ellos hablaron (they spoke). Notice the accents: the first person (hablé) and the third person (habló) always carry an accent mark, because the stressed syllable falls at the end. We use the preterite with time expressions like "ayer" (yesterday), "anoche" (last night), "el lunes pasado" (last Monday), "hace dos días" (two days ago), "en 2010" (in 2010). These words tell us that the action is already finished.

Examples

• Ayer hablé con el camarero en español. - Yesterday I spoke with the waiter in Spanish.
• ¿Tomaste un café esta mañana? - Did you have a coffee this morning?
• El cliente pagó la cuenta con tarjeta. - The customer paid the bill with a card.
• Anoche cenamos en un restaurante muy bueno. - Last night we had dinner at a very good restaurant.
• Compré dos entradas para el museo. - I bought two tickets for the museum.