How to use The pretérito indefinido of regular verbs ending in -er and -ir in Spanish

Learn how to use The pretérito indefinido of regular verbs ending in -er and -ir, and what to use it for in Spanish.
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The pretérito indefinido of regular verbs ending in -er and -ir

The pretérito indefinido (simple past tense) is used with actions that started and ended in the past.

El año pasado corrí una maratón en Madrid.

Last year I ran a marathon in Madrid.

Verbs ending in -er, such as comer (to eat), saber (to know); and in -ir, such as vivir (to live) or subir (to climb), are conjugated like this:

Comer en
Yo comí
Tú comiste
Él/ella/usted comió
Nosotros/as comimos
Vosotros/as comisteis
Ellos/ellas/ustedes comieron
Vivir en
Yo viví
Tú viviste
Él/ella/usted vivió
Nosotros/as vivimos
Vosotros/as vivisteis
Ellos/ellas/ustedes vivieron

Anoche comimos en el restaurante de Carolina.

Last night we ate at Carolina’s restaurant.

Ana vivió en Buenos Aires durante muchos años.

Ana lived in Buenos Aires for many years.

Note: some verbs, such as ver (to see), have a regular conjugation in the simple past, apart from the fact that they have no tilde (accent):

Vi una película muy buena. ver, pret. indefinido

I saw a very good film.


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