2.11.4 Not-quite regular preterite forms

Some not-quite regular verbs

There are a lot of verbs that sort of follow the regular pattern and aren’t true irregular verbs.  Don’t worry, we’ll get to those in the next section.  Some grammar experts say it’s confusing to students to call too many conjugations irregular because it makes the grammar seem hard.  Others say that anything that does not follow the full regular pattern is an irregular.  For you as a student, you can think about these verbs as irregulars that need to be memorized if you have trouble seeing the pattern or you can think of them as a less common pattern.  It’s really up to you and how you remember them best!

ER/IR verbs that have a stem change in the present tense.

Some of these verbs have a change in the preterite too, although not the same stem change that occurs in the present tense and not all present tense stem changing er/ir verbs have this not-quite regular form.  Some that do are: dormir, morir, mentir, vertir (and any compound forms like advertir, convertir or divertir), seguir (and any compound forms like conseguir or perseguir), sentir (and all compound forms like consentir).

Dormir in the present tense is conjugated as: duermo, duermes/dormís, duerme, dormimos, dormís, duermen.

In the preterite, these are the conjugated forms: dormí, dormiste, durmió, dormimos, dormisteis, durmieron.

Morir follows the exact same pattern.

Mentir and vertir both have e>ie in the present tense and seguir is e>i, but they have the same forms in the preterite:

Mentí, mentiste, mintió, mentimos, mentisteis, mintieron

Seguí, seguiste, siguió, seguimos, seguisteis, siguieron

Verbs that end in -ducir and traer (and its compound forms).

All the verbs that end in -ducir show the same not-quite irregularity.  All these forms will use -uje as the basis for the preterite.  Some of these verbs are: conducir, traducir, and producir.  This is their pattern:

Produje, produjiste, produjo, produjimos, produjisteis, produjeron.

Traje, trajiste, trajo, trajimos, trajisteis, trajeron

Preterite conjugations with an additional “y”

Verbs that end in -aer (caer), -eer (creer, leer), -oír (oír), -uir (destruir, huir), -oer .

These verbs have an additional “y” between the two vowels in third person/formal second person forms.

For example:

Leer: leí, leíste, leyó, leímos, leísteis, leyeron