The preterite of regular -er and -ir verbs

The preterite of regular -er and -ir verbs behave similarly. A slight difference is actually in the behaviour of the stem, as we'll see in a moment.

Taking as examples the verbs entender (to understand) and salir (to go out), the endings and example forms of the preterite are as follows:

Subject	Stem	Ending	entender	salir
yo	entend- sal-	-í	entendí I understood	salí I went out
tú		-iste	entendiste you understood	saliste you went out
él / ella		-ió	entendió he/she understood	salió he/she went out
nosotros, -as		-imos	entendimos we understood	salimos we went out
vosotros, -as		-isteis	entendisteis you understood	salisteis you went out
ellos / ellas		-ieron	entendieron they understood	salieron they went out

Some authors analyse these as being essentially "the same endings" as for -ar verbs, and that what changes is the theme vowel (a to i). However, if you see things this way, you must still remember the difference in the yo forms between -é/-í and in the él/ella forms -ó/-ió.

Practise the preterite of -er and -ir verbs

Fill in the grid below to practise the preterite of -er and -ir verbs:

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There are a couple of directions you can go in at this point:

To learn more about the different preterite forms, move on to -ir verbs with a vowel change in the preterite;
Or, if you're happy just knowing about regular verbs for now, move on to look at differences between English and Spanish in the use of the preterite and perfect tense.

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