Spanish, Reflexive Verbs , Irregularities in Regular Verbs, Impersonal "a" , Preterite Tense

Reflexive Verbs

The subject and the object are the same with reflexive verbs - the subject acts upon itself. A reflexive verb in Spanish will be marked with se attached to the end of the infinitive. These verbs are conjugated like regular verbs, except the reflexive pronoun agrees with case and gender and precedes the verb when not used in the infinitive form. Reciprocal verbs are the same as reflexive except the action passes from one person to another. It can only be used in the first and third person plural forms. Reflexive verbs sometimes use the "-self" forms in English, while the reciprocal verbs use "each other."

**Reflexive Pronouns**
me te se	nos os se

Some common reflexive verbs:

acostarse - to go to bed
bañarse - to bathe oneself
casarse - to get married
despertarse - to wake up
irse - to go away
levantarse - to rise
sentarse - to sit down
vestirse - to dress oneself
atreverse - to dare
quejarse - to complain

Irregularities in Regular Verbs

Some verbs have vowel changes in the present tense for all forms except first and second person plural. After dropping the endings (-ar, -er, or -ir), the e of the last syllable changes to ie, and o in the last syllable changes to ue. Some -ir verbs change the e to i.

e to ie	o to ue	e to i
pensar - to think querer - to want, like, love cerrar - to close comenzar - to begin despertar - to awaken empezar - to begin entender - to understand perder - to lose preferir - to prefer sentar - to seat sentir - to regret, feel	contar - to count poder - to be able costar - to cost dormir - to sleep encontrar - to find, meet jugar - to play morir - to die mostrar - to show volar - to fly volver - to return	pedir - to ask (for) repetir - to repeat seguir - to follow servir - to serve vestir - to dress

pensar			contar			pedir
pienso piensas piensa	pensamos pensáis piensan		cuento cuentas cuenta	contamos contáis cuentan		pido pides pide	pedimos pédis piden

Impersonal "a"

When the object of a verb (except tener) is a definite person, it is preceded by a. It isn't used if a number precedes the object though. The pronouns alguien (somebody), alguno (someone), nadie (nobody), and ninguno (no one) require a as well, when used as the direct object. It is also used before geographical names that are not already preceded by an article.

Veo a Juan. I see John.
Veo a alguien. I see somebody.
Describe a Chile. Describe Chile.

Preterite Tense

The preterite tense expresses an action in the past. It is used to describe events that are finished or complete. It is formed by adding these endings to the infinitive stem.

-ar verbs			-er and -ir verbs
-é -aste -ó	-amos -asteis -aron		-í -iste -ió	-imos -iste -eron

Viví en España dos años. I lived in Spain for two years.
Ellos hablaron con los niños. They spoke with the children.
Quién comió la fruta? Who ate the fruit?