Irregular Spanish Verbs:
An Introduction to Spanish Verb Conjugation
For the simplest way to describe and understand what a verb is we must venture back to when we attended elementary school. It was back then that many of us were first told that a verb is simply a 'doing' word and that it is a vitally important part of every sentence in every language in all parts of the world.
Words like speak, learn, eat, run and read are all verbs, and in Spanish they are very easy to learn whilst in their infinitive forms, but it isn't until the verb is in its numerous conjugated forms that learning Spanish verbs becomes much more difficult, and irregular spanish verbs in particular can prove to be particularly hard to learn for many.
The correct use of verb conjugation and tense is the most important factor in making sense out of a sentence, using the wrong conjugation or tense completely changes the meaning of a sentence and makes it very difficult to figure out who or what is performing the action and when that action is actually taking place whether it is the past, present or future.
In Spanish, practically all verbs are initially learned in their infinitive form. Spanish verbs are divided into three groups : the ‘ar’ verbs, ‘er’ verbs and ‘ir’ verbs. Quite simply, every Spanish verb will use one of these three endings; the vast majority of Spanish verbs end in 'ar', followed by those that end in 'er' and then 'ir'.
Each of these groups will follow a set pattern of conjugation that is applied to the vast majority of verbs in Spanish. Verbs that follow these patterns of conjugation are called REGULAR verbs. Regular verbs are relatively easy to learn since once the various conjugations for a specific group have been learned it is basically a case of applying those endings to the stem of any regular verb from that group.
In Spanish, verbs are made up of two parts; the 'stem' and the ending 'ar','er' or 'ir'. The stem is basically the verb and the ending is the Spanish equivalent to the Englsh 'to'.
For example the regular verb, 'hablar' means 'to speak' in English, 'habl-' is the stem of the verb and '-ar' is the equivalent to the English 'to'.However, IRREGULAR SPANISH VERBS, are not quite as easy to master as their regular counterparts, in fact they can be very difficult at times.
Irregular verbs do not follow the common patterns of conjugation followed by regular verbs hence why they are called 'irregular'.Unfortunately, the most commonly used verbs in Spanish are irregular, as they are in many other languages including English, and because of this they will be encountered very early on in your studies.
The biggest plus for the student is that even though irregular verbs are undoubtably more difficult to learn, they will be used a great deal more often than regular verbs and because of this they will become etched into a students' memory much more quickly. This is why there is just one way to learn Spanish Irregular Verbs successfully and that is with constant use and practice.
However, more often than not, learning Spanish verb conjugation is the main stumbling block that makes many Students decide to settle for speaking 'pigeon Spanish' rather than mastering the language. Unfortunately, too many Spanish courses exist that do not devote an adequate amount of time to verb training which means that the time it takes to learn and eventually master Spanish verbs depends a lot upon the student and the methods used.
There are two things a student needs in order to successfully train themselves for verb conjugation and they are a verb training program to quickly learn those diificult irregular verbs and a verb conjugation book for reference.
I have personally compiled a irregular spanish verb conjugation book, that can be downloaded within seconds and you can have your very own copy for just $16.00 and you can read a review of it here, but the most important tool for training and one that will make the whole task of learning Spanish verb conjugation a lot easier and a much more enjoyable experience is a verb conjugation trainer and I review the most recently released program here. So, if you are serious about learning Spanish or, if you are struggling with Spanish verbs then you definitely need to check out these reviews.
Also, to help you with any immediate issues, I have provided conjugation sheets along with information for the most commonly used Irregular Spanish Verbs and these are linked to on the left of this page where you will be able to download or print a detailed conjugation sheet for each of these verbs.
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Mucho Gracias y Hasta Luego
Daniel Major
irregularspanishverbs.com
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