Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The preterite or preterit (/ ˈ p r ɛ t ər ɪ t / PRET-ər-it; abbreviated PRET or PRT) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple past tense.
The preterite is used if this refers to a single action or event—that is, the person took a bath last night. Me bañé = "I took a bath" The imperfect is used if this refers to any sort of habitual action—that is, the person took a bath every morning.
The preterite and past participle forms of irregular verbs follow certain patterns. These include ending in -t (e.g. build, bend, send), stem changes (whether it is a vowel, such as in sit, win or hold, or a consonant, such as in teach and seek, that changes), or adding the [n] suffix to the past participle form (e.g. drive, show, rise ...
Preterite (Pretérito perfecto simple or Pretérito indefinido) amé: amaste [3] amastes / amaste [4] amó: amamos: amasteis: amaron: Future (Futuro simple or Futuro) amaré: amarás: amará: amaremos: amaréis: amarán: Conditional (Condicional simple or Pospretérito) amaría: amarías: amaría: amaríamos: amaríais: amarían: Subjunctive ...
The preterite and the imperfect can be combined in the same sentence to express the occurrence of an event in one clause during an action or state expressed in another clause. For example: Ellos escuchaban la radio cuando oyeron un ruido afuera. (They were listening to the radio when they heard a noise outside.)
The verbs ser (to be) and ir (to go) both exhibit irregularities in the present, imperfect and preterite forms (note that these two verbs have the same preterite fui). Together with ver (to see) and prever (to foresee), they are the only four verbs with irregular imperfect indicative.
The preterite or perfect is formed on base 2 with no suffix in the singular for classes 2, 3, and 4, and the suffix -c for class 1 [note 4]; the plural is formed on base 2 with the suffix -queh for all classes, without the -c suffix in class 1. It is similar in meaning to the English simple past or present perfect.
In the preterite tense, a number of irregular verbs in Portuguese change the stem vowel to indicate differences between first and third person singular: fiz 'I did' vs. fez 'he did', pude 'I could' vs. pôde 'he could', fui 'I was' vs. foi 'he was', tive 'I had' vs. teve 'he had', etc. Historically, these vowel differences are due to vowel ...