There are various ways in Spanish to express an action in the past. This exercise treats the simple past, or PRETERIT, which means that a verb is a one-word verb, already completed, which took place only once. For example, "I eat" is the present tense. "I ate" is the past tense. It is one word and the action is over. Formation: To conjugate regular ER verbs in the past drop the ER from the infinitive and you are left with COM. Add the following endings to the stem: í, iste, ió, imos, istéis, and ieron. For example, COMER in the preterit conjugates as follows: Comí-I ate Comiste-You ate Comió-He,she, you (formal) ate Comimos-We ate Comistéis-You all ate Comieron-They ate In the exercise that follows, conjugate the ER verbs in the past tense for the subjects provided.