My Home School News!

Spanish verb conjugation is very important part of learning Spanish, unfortunately it is also one of the most difficult areas of studying the language and as such is disliked by most students more so when irregular Spanish verbs are encountered!. However, if the goal of the student is to become fluent then Spanish verb conjugation is one aspect of the Spanish language that the student needs to have a full mastery of.

The hardships of learning Spanish are understood by many who have tried to or, who have been successful in learning the language but there is no area more demanding than that of learning Spanish verb conjugation. Many individuals will obtain a specific level of competence whether it is achieving a level good enough to order a meal at a restaurant or be capable of holding a good conversation, but the main factor in deciding which level of competence is reached is the level of expertise one has in verb use. A mastery of Spanish verb conjugation will improve Spanish fluency and for those who want to improve fluency, it is a no brainer.

We should all know what verbs are and what they are used for (that is, if we were paying any notice in school!) and that they are an important part of sentence structure as they indicate an action performed by the subject. Without a verb, sentences would make very little sense. In English we have it pretty easy where verbs are concerned, they rarely indicate the performer of an action, a service provided by the subject pronoun (I, he, she, you etc) and because of this they change little other than when an s or es is added onto the end of the verb in the 3rd person singular (he or she). This is where Spanish differs as subject pronouns are rarely used, other than to avoid ambiguity, as the verb changes to indicate, not only when an action happens(tense) but also who, or what, is actually perfrming the action.

How a Spanish Verb is Formed

The first point that should be explained is that of the structure of a verb in Spanish. In English we recognize a verb because it has the preposition to in front of it, for example to eat, and the combination of to and the verb is commonly known as the infinitive. In Spanish the infinitive is a single word, although it does have two parts called the stem and the ending. The ending is often referred to as the equivalent of to in English and can be either -ar, -er or -ir. These endings are important as they are used to group Spanish verbs into three specific groups called, imaginably, the -ar, -er and -ir verb groups. Each group follows a set of specific rules for conjugation as highlighted here.

Regular -ar verb hablar conjugated in the present tense

• yo hablo – I speak
• tú hablas – you speak
• él, ella habla – he, she, it or speaks
• usted habla – you (polite) speak
• nosotros/as hablamos – we speak
• vosotros/as hablaís – you (all) speak
• ellos, ellas hablan – they speak
• ustedes hablan – you (all) speak (polite)

Present tense conjugation of comer a regular -er verb meaning ‘to eat‘

• yo como – I eat
• tú comes – you eat
• él, ella come – he, she, it or eats
• usted come – you (polite) eat
• nosotros/as comemos – we eat
• vosotros/as comeís – you (all) eat
• ellos, ellas comen – they eat
• ustedes comen – you (all) eat (polite)

Present tense conjugation of vivir a regular -ir verb meaning ‘to live‘

• yo vivo – I live
• tú vives – you live
• él, ella vive – he, she, it or lives
• usted vive – you (polite) live
• nosotros/as vivimos – we live
• vosotros/as vivís – you (all) live
• ellos, ellas viven – they live
• ustedes viven – you (all) live (polite)

There are some things that should be noted about the three verb groups and their conjugations shown above:

• they all have the same ending for the first person singular – ‘-o’
• the -er and -ir verb groups have very similar endings differing only for the nosotros and vosotros forms.
• ambiguity can be avoided when using the third person singular and plural, and the polite version of ‘you’ by using the subject pronoun to precede the verb.(The subject pronoun is often dropped in European Spanish although it is still used frequently in certain Latin American Spanish dialects.)

Irregular Spanish Verbs

Spanish verbs would be relatively easy to master if only all verbs followed the rules of regular verb conjugation. As you may have guessed, this isn’t always the case.

There are quite a number of verbs that have irregularities in how they are conjugated and unfortunately many of these verbs are also amongst the most frequently used verbs in Spanish. Ser and estar (both meaning ‘to be‘), haber and tener (both meaning ‘to have‘), ir (‘to go‘), hacer (‘to make’ or, ‘to do‘), dar (‘to give‘), coger (‘to take‘), poner (‘to put‘), poder (‘to be able to‘ (‘can‘)), querer (‘to want‘), ver (‘to see‘), decir (‘to say‘), and venir (‘to come‘) are the core of irregular verbs most often used, but there are a great deal more.