How does recall of present progressive participles help Spanish students with preterite tense conjugations of a large group of irregular verbs?

Question

The compound verb tense call the present progressive tense requires conjugation of ESTAR and formation of the present participle (equivalent to "ing" participles or gerunds in English.

Think of the IR verbs that have a Spelling change in the stem--before adding "IENDO" as the ending? You then know which IR verbs also have a stem change inn certain preterite conjugations.

Answer 1

IR Verbs that are stem changer in the present tense (like pedir, srevir, repetir, seguis, dormir, morir,) require the same spelling change across multiple verb tenses. Two such tenses are the present progressive tense and the preterite tense. E's in the stem change to I'S. O's in the stem change to U's in:

1. the present participle
2. the 3rd person singular & plural preterite (él, ella,Ud. & ellos/as, Uds.)

3rd Person

PRESEMT PRETERITE

PARTICIPLE CONJUGATIONS

pedir pidiendo pidió/pidieron

srevir, sirviendo sirvió/sirvieron

dormir - durmiendo durmió/durmieeron

Now, you know that this pattern continues in the remaining IR verbs listed:

repetir, seguir, morir.

AND, this is not the complete list!! Just remember that if the stem changer is an IR verb, it also will perform in this way in both the present progressive participle AND the 3rd person conjugations of the preterite tense!!! ¡¡OJO!!