How to look up a word in the dictionary?

Question

if you wanted to know the meaning of the conjugate preterite verb (yo) intente, how would you look it up in the dictionary? what is the form of intente that you need to know?

Intente is not preterite. It is present subjunctive. The preterite requires an accent "intenté." - Daniela2041, Aug 22, 2016

You need the infinitive" intentar " look up the conjugations above left click on menu. Good luck mate - ray76, Aug 22, 2016

Answer 1

Ray is right that any verb in any dictionary is shown in its infinitive form and from there you find the conjugated tenses if the particular dictionary has conjugation. Most online dictionaries have this but most paper dictionaries do not, however the spelling of the infinitive that you want is intentar.

Thanks mate I had the wrong verb , but the idea was there . - ray76, Aug 22, 2016

Answer 2

You can try WordReference for example.

I use wordreference which is good if you do not know what part of the verb you are using. - Mardle, Aug 22, 2016

Answer 3

In some, but not all cases, if you put in a conjugation in our translation box it figures out the correct infinitive. It does in this case:

http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/intente

intente represents different conjugations of the verb intentar - View Conjugation