I need help with past tense in spanish

Hola Iz G.

Thanks for your question! Past tense verbs in Spanish can feel tricky at first, especially because some have stem changes while others don’t.

The most important thing to know is:

• Regular verbs follow clear patterns (for example: hablar → hablé, hablaste, habló…).

• Stem-changing verbs are fewer, and the changes usually happen only in the third person forms (for example: dormir → él/ella durmió, ellos durmieron).

• Irregular verbs don’t follow the normal endings and must be learned individually, e.g. tener → tuve, tuviste, tuvo…

It takes practice, but the good news is that the number of common stem-changing verbs is limited, so you can learn them step by step.

I recommend you look at our preterite lessons to see these groups explained clearly with examples. That way, you can start to practise and get more confident using them.

Keep going — it gets easier with practice!

Best wishes

Silvia