Spanish Past Subjunctive ER IR Spanish Verb Conjugation

Learning to conjugate Spanish verbs can be difficult. But if you learn these past subjunctive ER IR verbs and you'll be on your way to being fluent in a foreign language!

Spanish mini-course

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

-iera -iéramos
-ieras -ierais
-iera -ieran

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

One key to learn a foreign language is practice. Go ahead and repeat the endings one more time:

-iera -iéramos
-ieras -ierais
-iera -ieran

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

-iese -iésemos
-ieses -ieseis
-iese -iesen

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:

comiese comiésemos
comieses comieseis
comiese comiesen

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

Spanish 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
Preterite ER IR Verbs Spanish Verb Conjugation
Past Progressive Spanish Verb Conjugation