Spelling changes in the preterite -car, -gar, -zar verbs
¿Cómo se dice…? …the él/ella form of “buscar” in the preterite? …the yo form of “buscar” in the preterite? How do you pronounce this word? buscé It’s a “soft” c. To make a “hard” c you must add qu. busqué
¿Cómo se dice…? …the él/ella form of “pagar” in the preterite? …the yo form of “pagar” in the preterite? How do you pronounce this word? pagé It’s a “soft” g. To make a “hard” g you must add a u. pagué
¿Cómo se dice…? …the él/ella form of “almorzar” in the preterite? …the yo form of “almorzar” in the preterite? How do you pronounce this word? almorzé Spanish doesn’t allow “ze” or “zi”, so it changes to… almorcé
Bringin’ it todo junto -car verbs (c qu) practicar practiqué practicamos practicaste practicaron practicó practicaron -zar verbs (z c) comenzar comencé comenzamos comenzaste comenzaron comenzó comenzaron -gar verbs (g gu) jugar juguéjugamos jugastejugaron jugójugaron Why does this happen? It’s all because of the “-e”. It’s a spelling change; not a pronunciation change!
Think about English Some words change spelling when in the past tense You panic. (present) You panicked. (past) I stop. (present) I stopped. (past)
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