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Fui al palacio ayer.

Fui al palacio ayer.
I went to the palace yesterday.
From Lesson 102:The preterite of ser and ir (fui, fuiste)·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of Fui al palacio ayer.

ir
to go
al
to the
ayer
yesterday
el palacio
the palace

Questions & Answers about Fui al palacio ayer.

Why does fui mean "I went" here? I thought it also meant "I was".
You are right! The verbs ir (to go) and ser (to be) share the exact same forms in the preterite past tense. You have to look at the context to tell them apart. Because this sentence talks about movement to a destination (al palacio), fui means "I went".
Why is it al palacio instead of a el palacio?
In Spanish, whenever the preposition a (to) meets the masculine word for "the", which is el, they combine to form the mandatory contraction al. You will never see a el written as two separate words.
Where is the word for "I" in this sentence?
In Spanish, you can usually drop subject pronouns like yo (I) because the verb form already tells us who is doing the action. Since fui only belongs to "I", adding yo is optional and usually left out unless you want to add emphasis.
Does the word ayer affect which past tense we use?
Yes! The word ayer (yesterday) pinpoints a specific, completed time frame in the past. This is a big clue that you need to use the preterite tense, like fui, rather than the imperfect tense (which is used for ongoing or repeated past actions).

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