El Pretérito

1. El Pretérito Past tense. refers to specific, completed past actions Key Phrases: Certain time (last night, yesterday at 4:00, last July 4th) certain number of times (once, 3 times) Structure: Simple tense verb stem + ending

2. The Preterite Tense • Fixed point in time • I called you at 3:00 • Specific number of actions • I called you five times • Enclosed amount of time • I worked for eight hours.

3. Sometimes time is implied rather than stated. • I went to John’s party. • We ate at McDonald’s. • The meeting was boring • In the first 2 sentences, it is implied that the action happened once. • in the 3rd, we can assume that the meeting, from beginning to end, was boring.

4. Forming regular verbs in the preterite. • -ar verbs. Drop the –ar and add the following endings • hablar(I spoke, you spoke, he spoke)

5. -er and –ir verbs. Drop the –er or –ir and add the following endings –They are exactly the same!— • comer (I ate, you ate, he ate) • vivir(I lived, you lived, he lived)

6. Orthographic Changes in Regular Verbs (Crazy yo’s!) • verbs ending in gar; insert u before the e • yollegué • verbs ending in car; change c to qu • yobusqué • verbs ending in zar; change z to c. • yoalmorcé

7. VerbosIrregulares (grupo 1) • ser, ir, hacer are unpredictable and must be memorized. • ser and ir have same conjugation; use context clues to determine the appropriate word.

8. yo tú él nosotros ellos Irregular conjugations: ir, ser, hacer ser ir hacer fui fui hice fuiste fuiste hiciste fue fue hizo fuimos fuimos hicimos fueron fueron hicieron

9. yo tú él nosotros ellos Irregular conjugations dar, ver • dar and ver have –er/-ir endings but no accents! dar ver di vi diste viste dio vio dimos vimos dieron vieron

10. Practica!