Past Subjunctive ER IR — Spanish Verb Conjugation

To form the past subjunctive for ER/IR verbs, you take the root of the verb and add the following endings:

Let’s see if you can guess how these would work.

I wanted them to eat	Yo quería que ellos comieran
Maybe they wrote it	Tal vez lo escribieran
If she saw it	Si lo viera
She wanted me to attend	Ella quería que yo asistiera
They insisted that you (tú) sell it	Ellos insistioron en que tú lo vendieras
Before he ran	Antes que corriera (él)
I didn’t believe that he opened it	Yo no creía que (él) lo abriera

Go ahead and repeat the endings one more time:

Now, just like with “ar”, “er” and “ir” past subjunctive also have an alternate set of endings and here they are:

As I mentioned before, these endings are completely optional, however, if you’re a real overachiever, you may want to try to learn these endings.

Here’s an example of a verbs conjugated with the alternate endings:

Feel free to repeat this lesson as many times as you’d like, then move on to the other lessons to practice more.

Review

we doubted that he believed	dudamos que creiera
they wanted her to eat	querían que comiera
he liked me to read	le gustaba que leiera
it was important for us to surprise	fue importante que sorprendieramos
you (Sra. Parra) needed them to write	necesitaba que escribieran
you all preferred them to run	prefirieron que corrieran
they told him to drink	le dijeron que bebiera
it was hard for her to learn	era dificil que aprendiera
I was hoping you (Silvia) would promise	esperaba que prometieras
She wished us to understand	deseaba que comprendieramos
He didn't believe they would see	no creía que vieran
it wasn't necessary for you (Roberto) to sell	no fue necesario que vendieras
You (Sr. Peña) didn't ask her to go up	no le pidió que subiera
You all insisted that we live	insistieron que vivieramos
I didn't think that you all permitted	no pensaba que permitieran
...so that we received	...para que recibieramos
before they ate	antes de que comieran
unless you all decided	a menos que decidieran
hopefully you (Sra. Parra) learned	ojalá que aprendiera