What Did You Do?

In A1, you learned to talk about the past using the preterite tense. You can already conjugate regular -AR verbs× (hablé, hablaste, habló...), regular -ER/-IR verbs (comí, comiste, comió...), and a few key irregulars like ser/ir (fui, fuiste, fue...) and estar (estuve, estuviste, estuvo...).

Here is a quick reminder of what you already know:

Hacer is one of the most common irregular preterite verbs. Its stem changes to hic- (and hiz- for the third person singular×). Notice that the endings are different from regular verbs - there are no accents on the yo or él/ella forms.

Both poder and poner follow a similar pattern in the preterite. Their stems change to pud- and pus- respectively. They share the same set of unstressed endings as hacer. In the preterite, poder often means "managed to" or "was able to".

The verbs saber and querer also have stem changes in the preterite: sup- and quis-. An important nuance: in the preterite, saber often means "found out" and querer can mean "tried to" (or in the negative, "refused to").

When talking about past events, time markers help your listener understand when things happened. These phrases are essential for narrating life stories and milestones. They usually appear at the beginning or end of a sentence.

Now let's combine everything: irregular preterite verbs + life event vocabulary + time markers. This is how Spanish speakers naturally talk about milestones and important events in their lives. Notice how the reflexive verbs× (graduarse, mudarse, casarse) keep their reflexive× pronoun× in the preterite.

Two more forms you will need: tener is new in the preterite and follows the same pattern as estar (tuv-): tuve, tuviste, tuvo, tuvimos, tuvisteis, tuvieron. Conseguir changes e to i in the third person: consiguió, consiguieron.