The past simple in Spanish can be confusing, with many different past tenses to choose from. But don’t worry! In this post, I’m going to teach you everything you need to know about one of the most commonly used past tenses in Spanish: the «pretérito indefinido» (or «pretérito perfecto simple», or «pasado simple»… Yes, it has many names, but don’t worry, they all mean the same thing).

I will explain in which situations it is used and how to conjugate it for both regular and irregular verbs. And, to help you practice a bit, I will provide some interactive exercises. Don’t miss this opportunity to improve your Spanish and master the past simple in Spanish!

The past simple in Spanish

¿In what situations do we use it ?

1

The ‘pretérito indefinido’ is used to talk about an action that happened at a specific moment in the past. (We know the beginning and end of that action).

I worked for two years in that company

Yesterday we flew to Rio de Janeiro

«Remember: if the action happened in the past, and you can determine exactly when it occurred and how many times, then you have to use the ‘pretérito indefinido’.»

2

It’s used to talk about consecutive actions in the past.

«I got up and had breakfast, then I got dressed and went out onto the street.»

3

It’s used in biographies to list facts.

Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares, lived in Madrid, and wrote ‘Don Quijote’ in 1605.

Pablo Picasso lived in different cities, visited Paris in 1900, and painted ‘Guernica’ during the Spanish Civil War.

4

It is used with temporary markers as:

EXAMPLES

Ayer salí por la noche con mis amigos. (Yesterday)

Nací el 18 de junio de 1979 en Valencia.

Anteayer cenamos en un restaurante muy bueno. (The day before yesterday)

Hace 2 semanas compré un nuevo sofá bastante cómodo. (Two weeks ago)

Ana se mudó a Madrid hace 3 años. (Three weeks ago)

La semana pasada Ana y yo visitamos a mi abuela dos veces. (The last week)

El domingo pasado cociné una paella para mis amigos ingleses (The last sunday)

El lunes mi hermana llevó a su hijo al médico. (the last Monday)

The conjugation of regular verbs in the past simple tense in Spanish is easy. There are only two groups of regular verbs: those that end in (-AR) and those that end in (-ER) or (-IR).

Second conjugation (-ER) and third conjugation (-IR) share the same endings:

(-i, -iste, -ió, -imos, -isteis, -ieron)

The conjugated verbs in the first person (yo) and the third person (él / ella / usted) carry a stress accent on the last syllable.

Yo bailé, comí, viví

Él bailó, comió, vivió

In the past simple, the first-person plural (nosotros) conjugation of verbs ending in -AR and -IR (first and third conjugation) is the same as the first-person plural (nosotros) of the present indicative tense.

PRESENT TENSE in Spanish = PAST SIMPLE in Spanish

(AR) nosotros bailamos

(IR) nosotros vivimos

EXERCISE 2. Regular verbs in -ER

EXERCISE 3. Regular verbs in -IR

1. IRREGULAR VERBS IN THE ROOT

Some verbs in the past tense have an irregular root, meaning that the first part of this tense does not match that of the infinitive.

Verb in infinitive	TENER
Root	TEN –
Root in the past tense	TUV –

In these cases, that irregular root is the same for all six persons (Yo, tú, él/ella…).

Additionally, these verbs have different endings than regular verbs but

They are always the same endings, identical for verbs in the three conjugations

(-ar, -er, -ir).

-e -iste -o -imos -isteis -ieron / eron

Let’s take a look at this type of verbs.

U-ROOT IRREGULAR VERBS

The first past of these verbs (the root) changes and a «U» appears.

estar	to be	andar	to walk
tener	to have	poder	can / to be able to
poner	to put	caber	to fit
saber	to know	haber	there is /there are

I-ROOT – IRREGULAR VERBS

The first past of these verbs (the root) changes and a «I» appears.

hacer	to do
querer	to want / to love
venir	to come

J-ROOT IRREGULAR VERBS

The first past of these verbs (the root) changes and a «J» appears.

J-root verbs have another irregularity: in the third-person plural (ellos/as, ustedes), the ending is -eron instead of -ieron.

conducir	to drive	decir	to say
traducir	to translate	producir	to produce
traer	to bring	deducir	to deduce, to gather

2. IRREGULAR VERBS WITH VOWEL CHANGES

Some verbs in the past tense have a vowel change

Verbs ending in (-IR) that have a vowel change in the present also have it in the past tense in the 3rd person singular (él/ella/usted) and plural (ellos/as/ustedes).

Verbs that have an «e» in the root change to «i» and those that have an «o» change to «u».

PEDIR	él/ ella / usted pidió – ellos/as/ustedes pidieron
DORMIR	él / ella / usted durmió – ellos/as/ustedes durmieron

In verbs ending in (-IR) and (-ER) that have a double vowel in the root, in the 3rd person singular (él/ella/usted) and plural (ellos/as/ustedes), the vowel «e» or «i» changes to «Y».

LEER	él/ella/usted leyó – ellos/as/ustedes leyeron

pedir	to order / to ask	dormir	to sleep
sentir	to feel	morir	to die
despedir(se)	to fire / to say goodbye	leer	to read
reir(se)	to laugh	creer	to believe
elegir	to choose	caer	to fall
servir	to serve	oír	to hear
		construir	to build

3. IRREGULAR VERBS AT THE FIRST PERSON

These verbs have only orthographic changes in the first person.

These verbs have spelling irregularities in the first person. We only notice the irregularity when we write them, but in spoken language they sound regular.

Moreover, the endings are the same as those of regular verbs.

jugar	to play	buscar	to look for	empezar	to start
apagar	to turn off	explicar	to explain	organizar	to organize
llegar	to arrive	publicar	to publish	adelgazar	to lose weight
pagar	to pay

4. TOTAL IRREGULAR VERBS

ser

to be

ir

to go

dar

to give

The verbs «ser» and «ir» are conjugated the same way in the preterite tense. Therefore, we can differentiate them by context.

EXAMPLES

Juan fue a la fiesta (IR)

Frida Kahlo fue una pintora mexicana (SER)

The verb «dar», despite being in the first conjugation (-AR), has endings from the second and third conjugation (-ER, -IR).

The past simple in Spanish

EXERCISES – Irregular verbs

The past simple in Spanish. El pretérito indefinido

Learn at your own pace

The past simple in Spanish

EXERCISES – ESPAÑOL PLUS

Access now to 15 more exercises to practice the past simple in Spanish + Document PDF downloadable (Uses and conjugation)

¿Do you still want learning others past tenses in Spanish? Have a look at El pretérito perfecto.