The Best Ways to Use the Dar Preterite Conjugation in Spanish

Let’s do a little bit of review and check how the dar conjugation in the present indicative first:

Dar Present Tense Conjugation

Here we have the verb chart for the present indicative tense. Pay special attention to the yo form since that’s the major irregular part in the dar conjugation.

As you can see, the verb dar is unique in the yo-form for its -oy ending, rather than the typical -o. 

One more thing to notice here – neither the vosotros form nor the vos form have an accent mark, like most -AR verbs do. In fact, the great part is that the verb dar has a striking lack of accent marks throughout all of its conjugation forms. Lucky us, right?

Dar Preterite Tense Conjugation

Now that we’ve sufficiently jogged your memory, it’s time to move on to the good stuff. How to conjugate dar in the preterite tense. 

Let’s look at the verb chart first:

Notice anything peculiar about it? First of all – no accent marks again! That alone is cause for celebration. 

But there are a few key takeaways from this verb conjugation. 

• It follows the exact same format as the verb ver. 
• The yo form is di, even though it’s an AR verb. 

The third person is dio and dieron, even though AR verbs don’t usually have an I.

So in the preterite tense, this irregular verb does have some strange patterns to it. On the plus side, it follows a similar structure as other verbs and you don’t have to worry about accent marks. Not too bad as far as irregular verbs go!

Before moving on to the different uses of the verb dar, let’s look at one final conjugation.

Past Subjunctive

The truth is – the preterite tense and the past subjunctive tense have some clear connections in terms of the conjugation patterns. If you learn how to conjugate a verb in the preterite tense, you’re halfway there to mastering the past subjunctive.

So let’s take the opportunity real quick to try and memorize the past subjunctive conjugation. Even if you aren’t comfortable using it quite yet, now is the perfect time to review it. 

The reason it’s helpful to look at this conjugation now is that there’s always a strong connection between the root for the preterite tense and the conjugation for the past subjunctive. 

Just like the root in the preterite tense for dar is di-, it’s the same here. 

Both conjugations start with di, then add extra to the end. And the same thing happens to almost every irregular verb, so keep that in mind as you continue to study your verb tenses. 

How to use Dar in the preterite tense

Now we can move on to practical ways and examples on how to conjugate dar in the preterite tense. While there are many definitions for this irregular verb, in general, it can be used in three main ways. It can mean to offer, to produce, and to consider. 

Let’s look at some examples for each of those meanings. 

Offer

This is the most obvious meaning for the vocabulary word. This Spanish verb means to offer or give someone either something – either physical or figurative. Let’s look at the following sentences:

• Me dio un regalo. – He gave me a present.

• Tú diste dinero. – You gave money.

• Me dieron un ascenso. – They gave me a promotion.

So this usage of the Spanish verb is pretty simple and can be used just like in English. However, the next two meanings of dar can stray a bit from what you’re used to. 

Produce

Besides literally giving something to someone, you can also use dar to mean produce. This is common when referring to plants. Here are a few examples:

• Las higueras dan fruta en septiembre. – Fig trees bear fruit in September.
• El año pasado, el naranjo no dio nada. – Last year, the orange tree didn’t produce anything.