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There are some special verbs in the past tense; we call them irregular verbs. They are irregular in that it is hard to tell how we got the conjugated form from the infinitive. These are also verbs that are used a lot and that´s why we´ve planned a whole lesson for them.
We will cover a basic pattern that they follow, but remind you that some verbs like ir a, ser, and dar don´t follow the pattern. You can see these irregular forms by clicking on them in the verb form section, and when these verbs are used in the practice exercises, their forms will appear in the answers. We should mention that there is no way to tell whether a verb will be irregular or regular by just looking at it, so we have to memorize them.
First let´s look at the irregular verb endings:
| e | imos | |
| iste | ||
| o | ieron |
As we mentioned, several of the irregular verbs follow a pattern; they have a root or stem that they switch to in the past tense. Here are the verbs followed by the roots used in the past tense.
| estar | estuv- |
| hacer | hic- |
| poder | pud- |
| tener | tuv- |
| poner | pus- |
| querer | quis- |
| venir | vin- |
When we combine the new roots with the irregular endings we get something like this:
Sometimes these verbs can become confusing because we have been used to conjugating verbs in the yo with an o. Now all of a sudden we´ve switched that and the usted, él, and ella forms are the ones that end in o. If we just remember to do the opposite with these verbs, we´ll be all right.
tener Singular Plural yo tuve (I had) nosotros tuvimos (we had) tú tuviste (you had) usted tuvo (you had)
ella tuvo (she had)
él tuvo (he had)
Pablo tuvo (Paul had)ustedes tuvieron (you all had)
ellas tuvieron (they had)
ellos tuvieron (they had)
María y Pablo tuvieron (Mary & Paul had)
Let´s see some examples:
¿Fuiste a la fiesta anoche?
Did you go to the party last night?
In the exercises you will have the chance to provide the correct form of the irregular verbs. Please refer to the verbs in the verb forms section and click on them individually to see their different forms.
