pretérito tense of ser and ir

Question

as i understand the verbs ser to be and ir to go are the same when in the simple past tense.

fui fuiste fue fuimos fuisteis fueron

is there a way to differentiate between the verbs ser and ir when in the pretérito tense. This is very confusing.

Answer 1

Hi Hitch, well, the words are the same, true, but so are for example:

read read read

Three forms of the verb and how do you know which is which?

context is what counts.

Fui al cine . I went to the cinema.

Fui feliz. I was happy.

Welcome to the forum, please use correct spelling on this site

1 may i ask why you called me hitch (im not complaining just interested to know). 2 What word did i mispell? 3 Thanks a lot, well expalined. - El_Hitch, JUN 17, 2010

Answer 2

According to the lesson (2.6 , I think), you have to go by the context of the sentence to figure out which one it is. I am thinking this will come easier as your understanding of the language improves. I am confused by such things, too. We have many instances in English that are difficult for new learners, that us native speakers take for granted. Case in point: there and their. The spoken words are identical, but we know from the context which one it is. I think there are a lot more of these in English than Spanish as English is supposed to be pretty hard to learn. I'm glad I learned it by default!

on the contrary, i think english is the easiest language to learn. There is no masculine feminine neuter, no adjectival endings and verb endings rarely change either. All that is required is to translate the words and get them in the right order. - El_Hitch, JUN 17, 2010

That is a matter of opinion :) There are arguments for both sides on this forum. It is definitely easier to conjugate English verbs but spelling has to be hideous for a new learner. - chica_rica, JUN 17, 2010

Answer 3

I agree with Heidi - and if you think we have problems hitchens !

Look at it from the perspective of someone learning English - and it will seem a lot more reasonable.