Regular ER and IR Verbs in the Preterite
Comer and vivir share every regular preterite ending. Use that overlap to narrate what different people ate, learned, opened, or experienced during a finished period.
Learning objective
Form regular ER and IR preterite verbs across common subject forms.
Regular ER and IR verbs share all their preterite endings: í, iste, ió, imos, isteis, and ieron. Comer gives comí through comieron, while vivir gives viví through vivieron. One pattern therefore covers two verb families when you narrate completed actions.
Written accents belong on the yo and third-person singular endings: aprendí and aprendió, abrí and abrió. Nosotros forms such as comimos and vivimos carry no written accent. These past forms differ from present comemos and vivimos, although vivimos is identical in both tenses and needs context.
English uses did in questions and negatives, but Spanish keeps the information in one conjugated verb. ¿Comiste? means Did you eat?; no need to add a form of hacer. In a statement, Ella abrió la puerta already identifies a completed action and its third-person subject.
Link the forms into a finished shared meal: Primero recibimos a los invitados. Después, comimos, bebimos y compartimos historias. Al final, todos decidieron caminar. ER and IR verbs cooperate inside one narrative, and the sequence supplies more learning value than reciting parallel columns.
Examples
Aprendí la dirección y escribí un mensaje.
I learnt the address and wrote a message.
Both first-person preterites use accented í.
¿Comiste antes de salir o pediste algo después?
Did you eat before leaving, or order something afterwards?
The question uses two tú preterites without an English-style auxiliary.
Vivimos allí un año y después nos mudamos.
We lived there for a year and then moved.
The bounded duration makes vivimos past in this context.
Ellas abrieron las ventanas y compartieron la vista.
They opened the windows and shared the view.
Two regular third-person plural IR preterites form one connected event.
Common mistake
- Instead of
- ¿Hiciste comiste en casa y después vivistes allí?
- Try
- ¿Comiste en casa y después viviste allí?
Spanish does not copy English did by adding hiciste before a preterite. The tú ending is iste, not istes, so viviste has no final s. Both verbs themselves carry the past and subject information.
Practice
Try it yourself
Turn these notes into a connected completed account using aprender, escribir, abrir, and compartir: we learnt the plan; I wrote the list; Ana opened the shop; everyone shared the work.