Preterite

The preterite or preterit is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple past tense. In general, it combines the perfective aspect with the past tense and may thus also be termed the perfective past. In grammars of particular languages the preterite is sometimes called the past historic, or the aorist.
When the term "preterite" is used in relation to specific languages, it may not correspond precisely to this definition. In English it can be used to refer to the simple past verb form, which sometimes expresses perfective aspect. The case of German is similar: the Präteritum is the simple past tense, which does not always imply perfective aspect, and is anyway often replaced by the Perfekt even in perfective past meanings.
Preterite may be denoted by the glossing abbreviation or. The word derives from the Latin praeteritum, meaning "passed by" or "past."

Romance languages

Latin

In Latin, the perfect tense most commonly functions as the preterite, and refers to an action completed in the past. If the past action was not completed, one would use the imperfect. The perfect in Latin also functions in other circumstances as a present perfect.
Typical conjugation:

	dūcō, dūcere, dūxī, ductus
ego	-ī
tū	-istī
is, ea, id	-it
nōs	-imus
vōs	-istis
eī, eae, ea	-ērunt

Dūxī can be translated as "I led", "I did lead", or "I have led."
A pronoun subject is often omitted, and usually used for emphasis.

French

In French, the preterite is known as le passé simple. It is a past tense that indicates an action taken once in the past that was completed at some point in the past. This is as opposed to the imperfect, used in expressing repeated, continual, or habitual past actions. In the spoken language, the compound tense known as le passé composé began to compete with it from the 12th century onwards, and has since replaced it almost entirely. French simple past is mostly used in a narrative way to tell stories and describe successive actions. Novelists use it commonly: it brings more suspense, as the sentence can be short without any temporal reference needed. In oral language, the simple past is rarely used except while telling a story; therefore, it would be atypical to hear it in a standard discussion.
Typical conjugations:

Romanian

In Romanian, the preterite is known as perfectul simplu. The preterite indicates a past accomplished action ; however, this tense is not frequent in the official language and not frequent in the standard speech. The general tendency is to use the compound past to express a past action that is perceived as completed at the moment of speaking.
Simple past is still actively used in current speech in the southwestern part of Romania, especially in Oltenia, but also in Banat, Crișana and Maramureș, mostly in rural areas. Usage of the preterite is very frequent in written narrative discourse, the simple past of the speech verbs being generally after a dialogue line in narration:

Aici avem o crimă!, zise polițistul. This is a murder! said the policeman.

When used in everyday speech in standard Romanian, the preterite is used with the value of recent past, a recently completed action:

Tocmai îl auzii pe George la radio. I have just heard George on the radio.

The second person is often used in questions about finishing an action in progress that is supposed to be over, giving the question a more informal tone:

Gata, citirăți? Are you done, have you read ?

The forms of the simple perfect are made of an unstressed stem of the infinitive, a stressed suffix that is different in each group of verbs, and the endings -i, -și, -∅, -răm, -răți, -ră, which are the same for all the verbs:

	-a verbs	-ea verbs	-e verbs	-e verbs	-i verbs	-î verbs
	suffix a	suffix u	suffix u	suffix se	suffix i	suffix â/î
eu	-ai	-ui	-ui	-sei	-ii	-âi
tu	-ași	-uși	-uși	-seși	-iși	-âși
el/ea	-ă	-u	-u	-se	-i	-î
noi	-arăm	-urăm	-urăm	-serăm	-irăm	-ârăm
voi/dumneavoastră	-arăți	-urăți	-urăți	-serăți	-irăți	-ârăți
ei/ele	-ară	-ură	-ură	-seră	-iră	-âră

Italian

In Italian, the preterite is called passato remoto. It is a past tense that indicates an action taken once and completed far in the past. This is opposed to the imperfetto tense, which refers to a repeated, continuous, or habitual past action and to the passato prossimo, which refers to an action completed recently.
In colloquial usage, the use of the passato remoto becomes more prevalent going from the North to the South of Italy. While Northern Italians and Sardinians use passato prossimo in any perfective situation, Southern Italians will use passato remoto even for recent events.
Typical conjugations:

	-are verbs	-ere verbs *	-ere verbs *	-ire verbs	essere
io	-ai	-ei / -etti	-i	-ii	fui
tu	-asti	-esti	-esti	-isti	fosti
lui	-ò	-é / -ette	-e	-ì	fu
noi	-ammo	-emmo	-emmo	-immo	fummo
voi	-aste	-este	-este	-iste	foste
loro	-arono	-erono / -ettero	-ero	-irono	furono

*Many -ere verbs in Italian have stem alternations in the 1st person singular, 3rd person singular and 3rd person plural. Some verbs also have endings -etti, -ette, and -ettero. Additionally, unlike in most languages, the third person plural is stressed on the irregular root., not the second syllable
In a few remarkable cases, all three options exist for a single verb, although usage of each of these forms may vary. For perdere for example, the first person singular can occur as persi, perdei or perdetti or perduto ).

Portuguese

In Portuguese, the preterite is the pretérito perfeito. The Portuguese preterite has the same form as the Spanish preterite, but the meaning is like the "composed past" of French and Italian in that, for example, corri means both "I ran" and "I have run." As in other Romance languages, it is opposed to the pretérito imperfeito. Note that there does exist a pretérito perfeito composto but its meaning is not that of a perfect; instead it shows an iterative aspect. For example, tenho corrido does not mean "I have run" but rather "I've been running."
Typical conjugations:

	-ar verbs	-er verbs	-ir verbs	most irregular verbs	ser/ir
eu	-ei	-i	-i	-e	fui
tu	-aste	-este	-iste	-este	foste
ele	-ou	-eu	-iu	-e	foi
nós	-ámos, -amos	-emos	-imos	-emos	fomos
vós	-astes	-estes	-istes	-estes	fostes
eles	-aram	-eram	-iram	-eram	foram

Some verbs change the stressed vowel in their preterite root in the third person singular to prevent confusion between it and the first person singular, like ter and poder. Certain other verbs also use only the root in the first and third person singulars, such as pôr.

Spanish

In Spanish, the preterite is a verb tense that indicates that an action taken once in the past was completed at a specific point in time in the past. Usually, a definite start time or end time for the action is stated. This is opposed to the imperfect, which refers to any repeated, continuous, or habitual past action. Thus, "I ran five miles yesterday" would use the first-person preterite form of ran, corrí, whereas "I ran five miles every morning" would use the first-person imperfect form, corría. This distinction is actually one of perfective vs. imperfective aspect.
The special spellings for the "yo" form of the preterite are listed below ; these are needed to keep their respective sounds.

-gar verbs: -gué
-car verbs: -qué
-zar verbs: -cé
-guar verbs: -güé

The endings for -er and -ir verbs are identical.
The third person singular and plural forms of all verbs ending in -uir and -oír, as well as some verbs ending in -aer, end in -yó and -yeron, respectively; these are needed to keep their respective sounds.
Examples of verbs that have anomalous stems in the preterite include most verbs ending in -ducir as well as most verbs that are irregular in the "yo" form of the present tense.
In most Iberian Mainland Spanish and, to a lesser extent, Mexican Spanish, there is still a strong distinction between the preterite and the present perfect. The preterite denotes an action that began and ended in the past, while the present perfect denotes an action that began in the past and is over; thus,

Comí todo el día.
He comido todo el día

In most other variants of Spanish, such as in the Americas and in the Canary Islands, this distinction has tended to fade, with the preterite being used even for actions in the immediate pre-present with continuing relevance.
Typical conjugations:

	-ar verbs	-er verbs	-ir verbs	most irregular verbs	ser/ir
yo	-é	-í	-í	-e	fui
tú	-aste	-iste	-iste	-iste	fuiste
él/ella usted	-ó	-ió	-ió	-o	fue
nosotros	-amos	-imos	-imos	-imos	fuimos
vosotros	-asteis	-isteis	-isteis	-isteis	fuisteis
ellos/as ustedes	-aron	-ieron	-ieron	-ieron	fueron