One of the more difficult aspects when learning how to conjugate verbs is knowing which verbs are irregular. Many of these irregular verbs are this way because they fall into the category of what we call: stem-changing verbs. This basically means that not only is the ending of the verb going to change (according to the subject pronoun), but also the stem (main part of the verb) is also going to change.
Why do we have to do this? The main purpose is to conserve the phonetics of the word or provide a diphthong in the word. Another reason might be to avoid, spelling another word. Take for instance the verb jugar. If you follow the rules of conjugation for the present-tense, this verb should conjugate in the yo form to: jugo. The problem with this is that jugo means "juice". The correct stem change for what I just explained would be: juego.
The are also verbs in which we change not so much the front part of the stem, but the ending. Once again this done to preserve the phonetics of the word. Take for example Buscar in the preterit. If we follow the rule of the preterit, and conjugate it to the yo form we get: buscé. The problem with this is that the "ce" together make a smooth sound and the "c" looses its hard sound. That is why we must conjugate it to: busqué
This is very tricky part to Spanish and you just have to remember which verbs change stems in the different tenses. Be careful though, just because a verb changes stem in one tense, it doesn't mean that it will change in all the other tenses. :-)
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