pretérito

There are two principal ways to form the preterite. Here they are called the accented forms and the unaccented forms.

ex:Accented forms

ex:Unaccented forms

imperfecto

Notice that -er and -ir verbs have the same endings (all with accents):

Irregular verbs in the imperfect

There are only three verbs with irregular forms in the imperfect: ir, ser, and ver. Even so, they are not very difficult:

ser vs.estar

Noten que se usan sustantivos o adjetivos con ser, adjetivos y adverbios con estar, y sustantivos con tener. Casi siempre, si la selección es entre ser y estar, se usa ser con un sustantivo (hombre) y estar con un participio pasado (sentado).