Simple past pedir and competir/servir

Question

Hi,I'm just wondering why didn't you group pedir with competiir/servir into one lesson.  Their semi regular pattern with changes in the 3rd person only appear to be identical, and it would streamline the process.

Answer

Hola Greg -Indeed, and all other "-edir" and "-etir" verbs follow the same conjugation pattern [in the present as well as in the past]:i.e., medir, derretir, repetir etc. - as too do all "-egir" verbs like corregir and elegir [although these also need special care with g > j consonant-changes]."-ervir" is in fact the only ending where a 'similarity rule' cannot be applied, because hervir adopts an e>ie change in the present tense. However, hervir and servir both adopt the same small "i" irregularity in the preterite.I put some notes on this topic in http://dlmcn.com/ir_verbs.html

Answer

Hola Greg and David
We have a separate lesson for "pedir" because it is an essential verb that deserves its own lesson; we also have other essential verbs like estar, ser, querer... that have their own space, as they are very important. 
However we link lessons by tagging them at the bottom so you are exposed to other  verbs undergoing the same irregularity at the end of the lesson so students can see there are more verbs of this type. 
If they have a "dobble" irregularity, then we dedicate another lesson to those verbs, so they don't get mixed up with other that have just one of these irregularities. 
I hope this clarified it.
Inma