Unit 9 - Irregular Verbs in the Past Tenses
Lesson 9.2 - Spelling Changes in the Preterite
Exercises 9.2 Quiz 9.2
Topic:

Some verbs in the preterite tense need spelling changes to stay consistent with the pronunciation rules of Spanish.

Spelling Changes in the Preterite

In Unit 7 we saw verbs that required spelling changes in the present tense, so this idea should be familiar.

Although there are many verbs in this group, they are pretty easy to manage because the conjugations still sound like regular verbs.

They are just spelled slightly differently. Let me explain by looking at some specifics.

Verbs that End in -gar

Take pagar Play Audio for example.

If we follow the normal preterite tense conjugation rule for the Yo form, we would end up with pagé.

Remember that when "g" is followed by "e", it becomes a soft "g" sound, like in gente.

We need to preserve the consonant sound from the stem, so we need to change the conjugated form.

How? Spanish has a simple solution. Add a silent "u" after the "g", and get pagué Play Audio instead.

Preterite Conjugation of pagar, meaning to pay

Subject
Verb Form
Subject
Verb Form
Yo
Play Audio
pagué
Nosotros
Play Audio
pagamos
Play Audio
pagaste
Vosotros
Play Audio
pagasteis
Él/Ella
Play Audio
pagó
Ellos
Play Audio
pagaron

The difference is only in spelling. If you are speaking, it sounds just like the normal conjugation should.

Verbs that End in -car

Same chapter, different paragraph...

Verbs that end in -car have a hard "c" sound, which would change to a soft "c" if we did not revise the spelling in the Yo form.

Take buscar as an example.

The regular conjugation in the 1st person would yield buscé.

The final "c" is now followed by "e", switching it to a soft sound. We can't have that, so let's replace it with a "qu" with has the same sound as a hard "c". So we get busqué.

Preterite Conjugation of buscar, meaning to look for

Subject
Verb Form
Subject
Verb Form
Yo
Play Audio
busqué
Nosotros
Play Audio
buscamos
Play Audio
buscaste
Vosotros
Play Audio
buscasteis
Él/Ella
Play Audio
buscó
Ellos
Play Audio
buscaron

Verbs that End in -zar

The last group in this lesson are verbs like organizar Play Audio , meaning to organize.

This is just a peculiarity of Spanish, where the letter "z" is never followed by an "e".

As a result, "z" gets changed to a "c" in the Yo form.

Preterite Conjugation of organizar

Subject
Verb Form
Subject
Verb Form
Yo
Play Audio
organicé
Nosotros
Play Audio
organizamos
Play Audio
organizaste
Vosotros
Play Audio
organizasteis
Él/Ella
Play Audio
organizó
Ellos
Play Audio
organizaron

Verbs that end in -uir, -eer, -caer, -oír

These verbs need a change in the Él and Ellos forms, to avoid an awkward three-vowel sequence that Spanish doesn't like.

Consider distribuir Play Audio , meaning to distribute.

If we used a regular conjugation for He distributed, it would be distribuió.

These forms replace the final "i" with a "y" instead, to get distribuyó Play Audio .

Also note that the third person plural makes the same adjustment: distribuyeron Play Audio .

Preterite Conjugation of distribuir

Subject
Verb Form
Subject
Verb Form
Yo
Play Audio
distribuí
Nosotros
Play Audio
distribuimos
Play Audio
distribuiste
Vosotros
Play Audio
distribuisteis
Él/Ella
Play Audio
distribuyó
Ellos
Play Audio
distribuyeron

Here is another of this type, the verb caer Play Audio which means to fall.

For the -eer, -caer, and -oír verbs, you will also see that they add accent marks over the "í" in most of the forms.

Preterite Conjugation of caer

Subject
Verb Form
Subject
Verb Form
Yo
Play Audio
caí
Nosotros
Play Audio
caímos
Play Audio
caíste
Vosotros
Play Audio
caísteis
Él/Ella
Play Audio
cayó
Ellos
Play Audio
cayeron

And with that, you're off to practice.


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Additional Study Resources

Videos:
Quick rundown of one class of verbs presented in this lesson. (2:53)
And the other group of verbs in this lesson. (2:57)
Websites:
Covers all of the spelling changes discussed in this lesson.
Books:
Chapter 13, The Preterite Tense, "Orthographic changes in regular verbs", 4th edition pg 114.
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