preterite dar

Hola v m.

You're absolutely right to notice that dar (which is an -ar verb) doesn't follow regular -ar patterns in the pretérito indefinido. In fact, it’s one of the few irregular verbs in Spanish that conjugates in the preterite like an -er/-ir verb, and more specifically, it mirrors the pattern of ver (to see), which is also irregular in this tense.

Here’s how dar conjugates in the preterite for your reference.

As you can see, there's no accent marks, and the endings are closer to -er/-ir preterite forms, even though dar is technically an -ar verb. This is due to historical evolution in the language, not a logical rule, so it's best to treat dar as an irregular verb that simply must be memorized.

Finally, dar behaves like ver in the preterite (except that ver uses “v” instead of “d”), learning both together can make it easier to remember.

I hope you find this explanation useful.

Hasta pronto

Silvia