Practice some of the vocabulary from this song and its preterite tense verbs using these flashcards, games and exercises.

Did you miss the analysis for this song? Find it here!

Activities

Vocabulary Excercises

We have chosen 15 words and phrases out of this song to form our vocabulary list, which can be found below. You can use the following activities to learn and practice this vocabulary.

Vocabulary Flashcards – Learn the vocabulary from this song with our sets of Spanish to English and English to Spanish flashcards, then test yourself with our interactive flashcards.

Vocabulary Games – Practice the vocabulary for this song using our memory and matching games and our word search puzzle.

Vocabulary Exercises – Fill in the missing vocabulary with drag and drop and fill in the blanks exercises.

Grammar Exercises

This song provided several verbs in the preterite tense to practice. Information on the preterite tense as well as full conjugations can be found below.

You can use the following activities to learn and practice these verbs:

Preterite Flashcards – Practice the preterite tense verbs in this song with our sets of Spanish to English and English to Spanish flashcards, then test yourself with our interactive flashcards.

Preterite Games – Practice the preterite tense verbs in this song using our memory and matching games.

Preterite Exercises – Practice the preterite tense verbs in this song using our drag and drop, fill in, and highlighting exercises.

Resources

Vocabulary List

Term	Meaning	P of S	Context
alguien	anyone, someone	pron	alguien
cambiar	to change, modify	reg verb	cambian
conocer	to know; recognize; meet	spl chg verb	conocí
dolor	pain, sorrow, grief	masc noun	dolor
enamorarse	to fall in love, be in love	reg verb	enamorarme
fallar	fail, miss, make a mistake, mess up; break down	reg verb	falla
ganar	to win; to earn; to beat	reg verb	gané
llorar	to cry, weep	reg verb	llorar
parar	to stop	reg verb	paro
pedazo	piece	masc noun	pedazo
por aquí	this way, through here; around here		por aquí
rayo	lightning, lightning bolt; ray, beam; spoke	masc noun	rayo
revivir	to revive; rekindle, reminisce, relive; re-awaken; come back to life, be reincarnated; wake up, come around	reg verb	reviví
roto	broken; torn; damaged	adj	rotos
tacón	heel	masc noun	tacone’

Preterite Tense

The Spanish preterite tense (el pretérito) is one of the two simple past tenses in Spanish. It is used for actions that have been completed at some point in the past.

Regular Verbs in the Preterite

Regular verbs add the endings from the chart below to the normal stem, found by simply removing the -ar, -er, or -ir from the infinitive.

Subject	-AR Verbs	-ER and -IR Verbs
1st person singular – yo	-é	-í
2nd person singular – tú	-aste	-iste
3rd person singular – él, ella, Ud	-ó	-ió
1st person plural – nosotros	-amos	-imos
2nd person plural – vosotros	-asteis	-isteis
3rd person plural – ellos, ellas, Uds	-aron	-ieron

Highly Irregular Verbs

Only five verbs are highly irregular in the preterite tense. These are: ser (to be), ir (to go), ver (to see), dar (to give), and haber (to have). These verbs do not follow any patterns and just have to be memorized. None of these verbs appear in this song.

Verbs with Irregular Stems

Many irregular verbs have an irregular stem in the preterite tense and take the irregular endings in the table below.

Subject	Irregular Endings
1st person singular – yo	-e
2nd person singular – tú	-iste
3rd person singular – él, ella, Ud	-o
1st person plural – nosotros	-imos
2nd person plural – vosotros	-isteis
3rd person plural – ellos, ellas, Uds	-ieron

We see two of these verbs, hacer and decir, in this song, though both have irregularities to this pattern.

• Hacer takes the irregular stem hic-. This is true for all conjugations except the third person singular (él, ella, Ud), which uses the stem hiz- instead. This irregularity helps to keep the correct sound to the stem.
• Decir, like other verbs ending in -ducir, -decir, and -traer, has a letter j in the preterite stem. These verbs lose the i in the third person plural (ellos, ellas, Ustedes) ending, which becomes -eron instead of -ieron.

Spelling Changes

Some verbs undergo spelling changes in the preterite tense. This is done in order to keep the correct sounds in the stem of the various conjugations, as certain letters change their sound depending on the following vowel. We see one of these spelling changes in this song.

• In verbs ending in -zar, the z changes to c before the é ending of the first person singular (yo) form. This can be seen in the verb empezar below.

Stem Changes

Most verbs with stem changes in the present tense do not keep the stem change in the preterite tense, with the exception of verbs ending in -ir. These verbs do have stem changes in the preterite tense, but only in the third person singular and plural conjugations (él, ella, Usted, ellos, ellas and Ustedes). The preterite tense changes also differ from the present tense changes in that all -o to -ue stem changers become -o to -u, and all -e to -ie stem changers become -e to -i.

We see two examples of stem changers in this song: sentir and morir.

Conjugations

Following are the full conjugations of the verbs that appear in the preterite tense in this song.

hacer: to do; make; cause; prepare

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) hice	(nosotros) hicimos
2nd Person	(tú) hiciste	(vosotros) hicisteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted hizo	ellos/ellas/ustedes hicieron

decir: to say, tell

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) dije	(nosotros) dijimos
2nd Person	(tú) dijiste	(vosotros) dijisteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted dijo	ellos/ellas/ustedes dijeron

empezar: to start, begin – él, ella, Ud

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) empecé	(nosotros) empezamos
2nd Person	(tú) empezaste	(vosotros) empezasteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted empezó	ellos/ellas/ustedes empezaron

sentir: to feel; sense; hear; taste; feel about, think about; feel sorry about

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) sentí	(nosotros) sentimos
2nd Person	(tú) sentiste	(vosotros) sentisteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted sintió	ellos/ellas/ustedes sintieron

morir: to die

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) morí	(nosotros) morimos
2nd Person	(tú) moriste	(vosotros) moristeis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted murió	ellos/ellas/ustedes murieron

entrar: go into, come into, enter, get in

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) entré	(nosotros) entramos
2nd Person	(tú) entraste	(vosotros) entrasteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted entró	ellos/ellas/ustedes entraron

ganar: to win; to earn; to beat

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) gané	(nosotros) ganamos
2nd Person	(tú) ganaste	(vosotros) ganasteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted ganó	ellos/ellas/ustedes ganaron

conocer: to know; recognize; meet

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) conocí	(nosotros) conocimos
2nd Person	(tú) conociste	(vosotros) conocisteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted conoció	ellos/ellas/ustedes conocieron

dejar: to let, allow; to leave

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) dejé	(nosotros) dejamos
2nd Person	(tú) dejaste	(vosotros) dejasteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted dejó	ellos/ellas/ustedes dejaron

revivir: to revive; rekindle, reminisce, relive; re-awaken; come back to life, be reincarnated; wake up, come around

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) reviví	(nosotros) revivimos
2nd Person	(tú) reviviste	(vosotros) revivisteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted revivió	ellos/ellas/ustedes revivieron

pasar: to happen; to pass; to cross; to proceed; to spend (time)

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) pasé	(nosotros) pasamos
2nd Person	(tú) pasaste	(vosotros) pasasteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted pasó	ellos/ellas/ustedes pasaron

llevar: to carry, to take, to spend (time); bring; wear

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(yo) llevé	(nosotros) llevamos
2nd Person	(tú) llevaste	(vosotros) llevasteis
3rd Person	él/ella/usted llevó	ellos/ellas/ustedes llevaron