Click Here to learn how to conjugate irregular Spanish verbs quickly and with ease

How to Conjugate Spanish Verbs

It is important to fully understand exactly what a verb is and what it used for before moving on to learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs, so here is a brief explanation for those who require some clarity.

Verbs are probably the most important part of any sentence as they describe either an action, a state or an occurrence.

• Most commonly used as an action word, a verb will describe something that is being done, for example, I sing or they talk.
• Here are a couple of examples when a verb is used to express a state of being: My name is David, I am English.
• Finally, an occurrence or something that is happening: The rain bounced off the ground or the snow glistened.

So now we have covered, in the most basic of explanations, what a verb is we should turn our attention to understanding exactly what is meant by conjugation.

What is Conjugation?

Conjugation is when a verb changes its form to indicate when and by whom an action is undertaken. In English, verb conjugation is not as severe as in other languages, namely Spanish, and verb conjugation is not as much of an issue. There are exceptions, of course, like the verb ‘to be’; I am, you are, he is etc. but verbs are generally much easier to learn in English.

In Spanish, verbs have many different conjugations and each one indicates who performs the action and the tense (when it was performed!) and we will now take a look at how the simplest groups of verbs are conjugated.

Spanish Regular Verbs

In Spanish, the infinitive of a verb is a single word unlike in English where it is composed of two; the infinitive ‘to have‘ is ‘tener’ in Spanish.

However, the Spanish verb does break down into two parts called the stem and the ending. Let me explain. There are three groups of verbs in Spanish, these groups are called the ar,er and ir verb groups, they are so called because every Spanish verb ends in either ar, er or ir. These endings are preceded by, what is known as, the stem, which is basically the verb with the ending being the equivalent of the English ‘to‘.

In the majority of tenses, the ending is replaced, and the new ending will indicate who is performing an action and when it happens; these changes to the verb are collectively called conjugation.

Spanish has a high number of irregular verbs that are hard to learn because they have very difficult conjugations, often changing, not only the endings but, the stem as well. In order to to give yourself the best chance of learning these irregular verbs it is vitally important to know basic conjugation as used when working with regular verbs.

Here is an example of a regular verb from each of the three verb groups as conjugated in the present tense.

Bailar (to dance) a regular -ar verb

Singular

• bail-o I dance
• bail-as you dance
• bail-a he, she dances
• bail-a you dance (polite)

Plural

• bail-amos we dance
• bail-áis you dance
• bail-an they dance
• bail-an you dance (polite)

Vivir (to live) a regular -ir verb

Singular

• viv-o I live
• viv-es you live
• viv-e he, she lives
• viv-e you live (polite)

Plural

• viv-imos we live
• viv-ís you live
• viv-en they live
• viv-en you live (polite)

Comer (to eat) a regular -er verb

Singular

• com-o I eat
• com-es you eat
• com-e he, she eats
• com-e you eat (polite)

Plural

• com-emos we eat
• com-éis you eat
• com-en they eat
• com-en you eat (polite)

There are a number of similarities that you will notice here.

• Firstly, all first person singular conjugations end with ‘o’, irrespective of which verb group.
• Secondly, er and ir verb groups have the same endings apart from the 1st and 2nd person plural, we and you. This similarity between the ir and er verbs is consistent through many of the different tenses and does make conjugating them a little easier!

Unfortunately, the explanation above is just the first step down the road of mastering Spanish verb conjugation, there are many more tenses that need to be learnt and there are also, as mentioned, many irregular verbs too but the above is the foundation on which your verb studies will be based.

————————————————————————————————-

If you are a little more advanced in your studies why not have a read of my previous post that covers the Spanish Past Tense. If you are finding mastering verbs and verb conjugation too difficult or would like help learning them then check out my Verbarrator Review. It’s a fantastic learning tool for quickly getting to grips with Spanish verbs and it is the only Spanish software program that I still use frequently!