Tell the story of a fight and making up

You already know three verbs with a special stem in the preterite: estuve, tuve, hice (A2, unit 9). Eight more very common verbs work the same way. You need them to tell who said what, who came and who brought what.

They all take the same endings as tuve: -e, -iste, -o, -imos, -isteis, -ieron. For example: vine, viniste, vino, vinimos, vinisteis, vinieron. There's no written accent anywhere: dijo, puso.

After j, the ellos form drops the i: dijeron, trajeron, condujeron — not ✗ dijieron. All verbs ending in -ducir change like conducir.

• Ayer no pude ir a la cena: tuve que trabajar. — I couldn't go to the dinner yesterday: I had to work.
• ¿Qué te dijo Pablo? — No me dijo nada. — What did Pablo tell you? — He didn't tell me anything.
• Mis amigos vinieron a casa y trajeron un postre. — My friends came over and brought a dessert.
• ¿Dónde pusiste las llaves? — Where did you put the keys?
• Lo supe ayer. — I found out yesterday.

The meaning shifts a little. In the preterite, supe means "I found out" (not "I knew"), quise means "I wanted to, I tried", and pude means "I managed to, I was able to".

Common mistake: building the form by the regular rule: ✗ decí, ✗ ponió, ✗ condució. The right forms are dije, puso, condujo. And don't be surprised by vino: it means both "he came" and "wine".

These verbs have the usual endings, like comí, comió (A2, unit 8). Only one letter in the stem changes, and only in two forms: él / ella / usted and ellos / ustedes.

1. e → i and o → u. This happens with -ir verbs whose stem also changes in the present tense (pido, duermo).

The same goes for repetir → repitió, seguir → siguió, preferir → prefirió, sentir → sintió, mentir → mintió, despedirse → se despidió, reírse → se rio, morir → murió.

2. i → y between vowels. With leer, oír, caerse and creer: leyó, leyeron; oyó, oyeron; se cayó, se cayeron; creyó, creyeron. The other forms have í with a written accent: leí, leíste, leímos.

• Nacho pidió perdón. — Nacho apologized.
• Anoche Pablo no durmió nada. — Pablo didn't sleep at all last night.
• Ana leyó el mensaje, pero no respondió. — Ana read the message but didn't reply.
• Los vecinos lo oyeron todo. — The neighbors heard everything.
• El vaso se cayó al suelo. — The glass fell on the floor.

-ar and -er verbs don't change their stem in the preterite: pensó, volvió.

Common mistake: changing the stem everywhere, like in the present tense: ✗ yo pidí, ✗ yo durmí. In the yo form the stem stays the same: pedí, dormí. Only the él and ellos forms change.

You already know empezar a + infinitive — to start (A2, unit 10), and ponerse on its own — to become, to put on. Ponerse a + infinitive has its own shade of meaning: to start suddenly, sharply, or in earnest. In English it's often "start + -ing" or "burst out": se puso a reír — he burst out laughing.

How it works: ponerse in the right form + a + infinitive. The pronoun (me, te, se…) goes before ponerse. When you tell a story about the past, it's almost always the preterite: me puse, te pusiste, se puso, nos pusimos, os pusisteis, se pusieron.

• Nacho se puso a reír. — Nacho burst out laughing.
• Los dos se pusieron a discutir delante de todos. — The two of them started arguing in front of everyone.
• Llegué a casa y me puse a cocinar. — I got home and started cooking.
• De repente se puso a llover. — Suddenly it started raining.
• Cuando estoy nerviosa, me pongo a limpiar. — When I'm nervous, I start cleaning (woman speaking).

How it differs from empezar a. Empezó a trabajar en mayo — he started working in May: just a beginning, he has had the job since May. Se puso a trabajar — he got down to work: sat down and got going right then. With crying, laughing and shouting, ponerse a sounds more vivid: se puso a llorar — she burst into tears.

Common mistake: forgetting se or a: not ✗ puso reír, but se puso a reír. Without se it's a different verb: puso — he put.