Do you conjugate shoe verb....?

Question

Do you conjugate the shoe verb in preterite tense? If I wanted to say the class started with 5 students... Would I put empezó or empiezó?

Answer 1

Most verbs do not change their stems in the preterite, even though they do in the present (the so-called "boot" verbs). So all those "e -> ie" verbs are (mostly) regular in the preterite, including empezar.

The only major exception that I know of is IR verbs, and they only change their stems in the third person. So, pedir becomes "pidió" and "pidieron".

Answer 2

The answer to your question is, no, boot-verb don't stem change in the preterite tense. The only stem change that occurs in the preterite tense is for -ir stem changing verbs, and only the 3rd person plural and singular form changes. Stem changing -ir verbs in preterite change to the same vowels that their -iendo forms take (e --> i ; o --> u).

Answer 3

Empezar is conjugated as empezó. You can check any word under "conjugation" under the "More" tab at the top, and then type in the infinitive.

Answer 4

Thanks