{"id":100,"date":"2025-03-12T08:39:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T08:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mariaortegagarcia.com\/?p=100"},"modified":"2025-03-12T10:16:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T10:16:59","slug":"irregularities-of-indefinido-in-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mariaortegagarcia.com\/es\/spanish-blog\/irregularities-of-indefinido-in-spanish\/","title":{"rendered":"Irregularities of the Pret\u00e9rito Indefinido tense in Spanish. Talking about the past"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A few days ago, a follower of my\u00a0<\/i>Facebook page<\/i><\/a>\u00a0asked me for help with his personal nightmare in Spanish. For him, the irregular verbs in the Pret\u00e9rito Indefinido (Past Tense) were just something he couldn\u2019t understand, so he wrote me a few lines asking me for some tips. As this week, I also had a class with one of my students, working on the same topic, I decided I was going to spend some time answering all your prayers about the irregularities of the verbs in the Pret\u00e9rito Indefinido in Spanish.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>

The past tense has many names in Spanish. It is called \u201cpret\u00e9rito\u201d, \u201cpret\u00e9rito indefinido\u201d, \u201cindefinido\u201d, \u201cpasado simple\u201d\u2026 I will call it\u00a0Indefinido.<\/i><\/p>

This tense is used to talk about the past in Spanish. We used to talk about actions accomplished in a\u00a0particular<\/b>\u00a0moment in the\u00a0past<\/b>.<\/p>

\u2013\u00a0El a\u00f1o pasado\u00a0mis padres y yo\u00a0nos mudamos\u00a0a nuestra nueva casa. \u2013\u00a0Last year, my parents and I moved to our new house.<\/i><\/p>

So, the action (mudarse = \u2018to move\u2019) was accomplished, finished in an specific time in the past (el a\u00f1o pasado = \u2018last year\u2019). We also use the pret\u00e9rito indefinido to express an action that happens in the past, occurs in the middle of other action.<\/p>

\u2013 Justo cuando est\u00e1bamos pas\u00e1ndolo mejor,\u00a0tuvo\u00a0que irse.\u00a0\u2013 Right when we were having more fun, he had to go.<\/i><\/p>

As you can see, there are two actions: one extended in time (pasarlo bien = \u2018have fun\u2019) and one that happens in the middle of the previous one (tener que irse = \u2018have to go\u2019). In those cases, the action that happens in the middle of another action goes in pret\u00e9rito indefinido.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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How to Form the Regular Indefinido\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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To conjugate a regular verb in the \u201cIndefinido\u201d, you just need to drop the endings -ar, -er or -ir from the infinitive form and add the endings.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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How to Form the Irregular Indefinido<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Unfortunately there are quite a few irregular verbs in this tense. Verbs with an irregular root:<\/p>

Note!!!\u00a0Traer<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Decir<\/i>\u00a0drop the \u201c-i-\u201c. In the form of they (ellos, ellas) we say \u201ctraj<\/b>eron<\/b>\u201d and \u201cdij<\/b>eron<\/b>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Some more irregularities\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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