How do you form the preterite tense (el pretérito) for regular verbs?

The preterite tense in Spanish is used to talk about an action that has been completed. In order to conjugate a regular verb into the preterite tense we firstly need to find the stem of the verb, which we get by dropping the ending from the infinitive. The infinitive is what we find in the dictionary and will end in either -ar, -er or -ir. As an example, let us look at the verb 'hablar' (which means to speak). If we take off the verb ending 'ar' from the infinitive, we are left with 'habl' which is the stem. So, after dropping the ending we must add the correct ending for the preterite tense for the correct subject (the person or thing doing the action). Here are the endings in the order of yo, tú, él/ella/usted, nosotros, vosotros, ellos/ellas/ustedes. For each type of verb, we will see an example of how it is fully conjugated. Regular -ar verbs: -é, -aste, -ó, -amos, -asteis, -aron [e.g. hablar: hablé, hablaste, habló, hablamos, hablasteis, hablaron] Regular -er verbs: -í, -iste, -ió, -imos, -isteis, -ieron [e.g. comer: comí, comiste, comió, comimos, comisteis, comieron] Regular -ir verbs: -í, -iste, -ió, -imos, -isteis, -ieron [e.g. vivir: viví, viviste, vivió, vivimos, vivisteis, vivieron] You will notice that the endings for regular -er and -ir verbs in the preterite are the same. Remembering the endings will help you to be able to conjugate any regular verbs into the preterite tense.