Every Way to Use the Tener Preterite Conjugation in Spanish

Tener Present Tense Conjugation

Here we have the verb chart for the present indicative tense. You’ll notice that in the indicative mood, the Spanish verb tener is irregular in just about every conjugation form. 

Here, it’s important to pay attention to two key changes:

1. The yo form undergoes a special change and ends in -go. 
2. It’s a stem-changing verb, so the E changes to IE. 

Although if you’ve made it this far into your Spanish studies, you’ve probably already got this down-path. But it never hurts to do a quick review, right?

Tener Preterite Tense Conjugation

Now that we’ve done that quick review, it’s time to go over what you came here for. We need to learn the tener conjugation in the preterite tense. 

Let’s look at the verb chart:

First things first – no accent marks again! We love a verb with no accent marks. 

But there are a few key takeaways from the tener conjugation. 

• It follows the same pattern as some other verbs in the preterite tense like andar and haber. 
• Verbs that have tener as the stem follow the same pattern, as well. For example, words like mantener and contener will use the tener conjugation. 

It’s yo tuve with an E, but nosotros tuvimos with an I.

Like always, there are some strange patterns to the tener preterite conjugation. The good news is that with a little bit of practice, it shouldn’t take you long to master it. And the even better news is that there are so many ways to use the verb, you’ll absolutely get the chance to practice!

Past Subjunctive Mood

In case you’ve never noticed before, there’s a clear connection between the pretérito perfecto simple and the past subjunctive. Since the preterite and the subjunctive share a similar root, it’s always a good idea to try and learn both at the same time.

So let’s take the opportunity real quick to try and memorize the past subjunctive conjugation. Even if you aren’t comfortable knowing how to use this mood, you’ll be one step ahead if you work on the conjugation chart now. 

As you can see, there’s definitely a connection between the verb forms in the preterite and the past subjunctive. They share a similar root, and this will happen with all verbs. 

So if you ever need to practice learning difficult verbs in the preterite tense, it’s generally a good idea to check them out in the past subjunctive while you’re at it.

Both conjugations start with tuv, then add their appropriate endings. And the same pattern happens to almost every irregular verb, so keep that in mind as you continue to study your verb tenses. 

How to use Tener in the preterite tense

It’s time to move on to specific ways we can use the verb tener in the preterite tense. As a general description, you can consider tener to have three main meanings: to own, to need to do, and to experience.

Let’s look at some examples for each of those meanings in a bit more detail. 

Own

This is the most common usage of the verb tener. It’s also the one that’s the easiest for English speakers. You can use tener to mean that you own something. In this sense, we would normally conjugate tener and have it followed by a noun. 

• Ayer no tuve tiempo para acabar la tarea. – Yesterday I didn’t have time to finish my work.

• La película de Marvel tuvo mucho éxito. – The marvel movie was very successful.

• Mi abuela tuvo cuatro hijos. – My grandmother had four kids.

• Mis padres tuvieron un Volkswagen hasta que se compraron un Audi. – My parents had a Volkswagen until they bought an Audi.  

So this usage of the Spanish verb is pretty simple and can be used just like in English in most cases. However, there are some specific differences. 

For example, you can often use a noun instead of an adjective. We would say tener éxito, rather than ser exitoso. We’ll see more examples of structures like that in a minute. 

Need to do 

The next way to use this verb is very simple. We can use it as part of a perífrasis verbal. In other words, it’s a verb that always goes with another verb to have a specific meaning. We use “to have to” the same way in English, so this one should come pretty naturally to you. 

Check out these examples:

• Tú tuviste que asistir al congreso el mes pasado, ¿no? – You had to attend the conference last month, right?

• Ayer tuve que ir en bici porque el metro no funcionaba. – Yesterday I had to go by bike because the metro wasn’t working.

As you can see for each of these examples, you’ll always have tener que plus another verb. 

See, things aren’t always so difficult!