Lesson 17: The Rest of Preterite: Spelling, Stems, and Yo Forms

So we have one more "group" to take a look at in the preterite. It's a bit of a hodge-podge of some things we've seen before; there are some stems that change, sometimes and there are some spelling changes. We'll group them as best we can to help you sort it out. Here goes…

There are some verbs that need to add a y in the 3rd person forms of the preterite. This makes the pronunciation and spelling work together. Notice that -ER verbs have accents on the I for all other forms. Here are three examples:

Some other verbs are only going to have stem changes in the 3rd person forms: the O becomes a U‍ in one group, and the E becomes an I in the other. See these examples:

Dormir (to sleep) follows the same pattern as morir.

Pedir (to ask for) and sentir (to feel) are two more that work like seguir.