Ver Conjugation: Ver Tenses Conjugated

Ver Conjugation:

Ver Conjugation

The Spanish verb VER, which translates as ‘to see‘ or ‘to watch‘ in English, does not cause that many problems for most students, however it has certain irregularities that will need to be mastered, the most important being those that affect the present tense conjugation. Below you will find each tense Ver conjugation with the irregular forms highlighted in red.

Gerund:
viendo - seeing

Past Participle:
visto - seen

Present Tense of Ver – presente:

• yo veo – I see
• tú ves/vés – you see
• él/ella ve/vé- he/she sees
• usted ve/vé – you see (polite)
• nosotros/as vemos – we see
• vosotros/as véis- you see (plural)
• ellos/ellas ven/vén - they see
• ustedes ven/vén- you see (polite plural)

Preterite Tense of Ver – pretérito:

• yo vi – I saw
• tú viste – you saw
• él/ella vio – he/she saw
• usted vio – you saw (polite)
• nosotros/as vimos – we saw
• vosotros/as visteis – you saw (plural)
• ellos/ellas vieron – they saw
• ustedes vieron – you saw (polite plural)

Imperfect Tense of Ver – imperfecto:

• yo veía – I used to see
• tú veías – you used to see
• él/ella veía – he/she used to see
• usted veía – you used to see (polite)
• nosotros/as veíamos – we used to see
• vosotros/as veíais – you used to see (plural)
• ellos/ellas veían – they used to see
• ustedes veían – you used to see (polite plural)

Future Tense of Ver – futuro:

• yo veré – I will see
• tú verás – you will see
• él/ella verá – he/she will see
• usted verá – you will see (polite)
• nosotros/as veremos – we will see
• vosotros/as veréis – you will see (plural)
• ellos/ellas verán – they will see
• ustedes verán – you will see (polite plural)

Conditional Tense of Ver – condicional:

• yo vería – I would see
• tú verías – you would see
• él/ella vería – he/she would see
• usted vería – you would see (polite)
• nosotros/as veríamos – we would see
• vosotros/as veríais – you would see (plural)
• ellos/ellas verían – they would see
• ustedes verían – you would see (polite plural)

Present subjunctive Tense of Ver – presente del subjuntivo:

• yo vea- I see
• tú veas- you see
• él/ella vea- he/she see
• usted vea- you see (polite)
• nosotros/as veamos- we see
• vosotros/as veáis- you see (plural)
• ellos/ellas vean- they see
• ustedes vean- you see (polite plural)

Imperfect subjunctive Tense of Ver – imperfecto del subjuntivo:

• yo viera/viese – I saw
• tú vieras/vieses – you saw
• usted/él/ella viera/viese – he/she and you saw
• nosotros/as viéramos/viésemos – we saw
• vosotros/as vierais/vieseis – you saw (plural)
• ustedes/ellos/ellas vieran/viesen – they or you (polite plural) saw

Ver Imperative – imperativo:

• (tú) ¡Ve! or ¡Vé! - See!
• (usted) ¡Vea! – See!
• (nosotros/as) ¡Veamos! - Let’s See!
• (vosotros/as) ¡Ved! – See!
• (ustedes) !Vean! - See!

There are three other verbs that use the exact conjugation patterns as ver but they are not used that often but are worthwhile noting, they are: entrever ‘to partially see‘ or ‘to make up‘, prever ‘to predict‘ or ‘to preview‘ and rever ‘to review‘.

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The Spanish verb Oír, which means ‘to hear’, is an irregular Spanish verb. Although not one of the most difficult of irregular verbs to master it is highly irregular in the much used present tense and also in the subjunctive (often used in Spanish!) as well as having third person irregularities in the preterite and an irregular past participle and present participle or ‘Gerund‘. (Did I forget to mention the imperative too!).

Oír is one of four verbs that follow this distinctive pattern of irregularity and all of them relate to ‘hearing‘:

• Oír - to hear
• Entreoír - to half hear
• Trasoír - to mishear
• Desoír - to ignore or, as I like to translate it as, – to choose not to hear!

Oír and Desoír are the verbs that are more commonly used of the four, but once you have mastered the following patterns of conjugations you will be able to apply it to all four.

Past Participle: oído
Present Participle: oyendo

Present Tense Conjugation:

• yo oigo – I hear
• tú oyes – you hear
• él/ella oye – he/she hears
• nosotros/as oímos – we hear
• vosotros/as oís – you hear (plural)
• ellos/ellas oyen – they hear

Please note that the vosotros form of the present tense is not irregular.

Preterite Tense Conjugation

• yo oí – I heard
• tú oíste – you heard
• él/ella oyó – he/she heard
• nosotros/as oímos – we heard
• vosotros/as oísteis – you heard (plural)
• ellos/ellas oyeron – they heard

Only the él/ella and ellos/ellas third person conjugations are irregular in the preterite.

The Subjunctive Mood

• Present Tense

• yo oiga – I hear
• tú oigas – you hear
• él/ella oiga – he/she hears
• nosotros/as oigamos – we hear
• vosotros/as oigáis – you hear (plural)
• ellos/ellas oigan – they hear

• Imperfect Tense

• yo oyera or oyese – I heard
• tú oyeras or oyeses – you heard
• él/ella oyera or oyese – he/she heard
• nosotros/as oyéramos or oyésemos – we heard
• vosotros/as oyerais or oyeseis – you heard (plural)
• ellos/ellas oyeran or oyesen - they heard

• Future Tense

• yo oyere – I will hear
• tú oyeres – you will hear
• él/ella oyere – he/she will hear
• nosotros/as oyéremos – we will hear
• vosotros/as oyereis – you will hear (plural)
• ellos/ellas oyeren – they will hear

The Imperative Mood

The imperative is slightly strange as it is literally translated as ‘Hey!’ rather than ‘Hear!’ or ‘Listen!’

For example:
When someone shouts at you,
¡Oye, ven aqui! – Hey you, come here!

The imperative is often used in places such as restaurants to get the attention of the waiter or waitress:
Oiga señor – ¿nos puede traer el menú? – Hey Sir – can you bring us a menu?

• tú oye – Hey! (you)
• él/ella oiga – Hey!
• nosotros/as oigamos – Hey!
• vosotros/as oíd – Hey! (you plural)
• ellos/ellas oigan – Hey!

That concludes this post on the Spanish verb Oír but if learning verb conjugation is proving difficult for you why not check out my review of the Verbarrator verb training program, it has helped me immensely and is by far the best training tool I’ve ever used.

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1001 Spanish Verbs

1001 Spanish verbs was a program that you could download to your PC relatively cheaply and it provided the full conjugation for each of those verbs in the 12 most important tenses used in the Spanish language. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to find this program for the PC nowadays and it now seems to be available for downloads to mobile phones only.

However, the question you should be asking is whether or not you actually need a program, or book, that provides the full conjugation for that number of verbs?

The simple answer to this question is ‘no’ and here is an explanation of why the answer is a negative. As you are no doubt aware, there are many thousands of regular verbs in Spanish, and these verbs fall into three groups. These three groups are comprised of verbs that end in either, -ar, -er or -ir.

Regular verbs are so-called because they follow exactly the same Spanish verb conjugation pattern as other verbs that use the same ending, this means you would only really need a full list of regular verbs and a single full conjugation sheet for each verb group in order to find the necessary form.

The only problem with Spanish, as with many other languages, are the high numbers of irregular Spanish verbs that there are…over 2000 to be precise! This, in itself, is enough to panic a Spanish language student especially as learning the conjugations of irregular Spanish verbs is considered the most difficult task when learning the language.

Two thousand seems an awfully large number of verbs with irregularities to learn and if you had to learn each one it would be, without a doubt, but when you consider first of all, that many of these verbs will be very rarely used, if at all, and secondly that these 2000 plus verbs can be further broken down into 66 or so different types of irregular patterns and the task appears much more doable!

So to recap…3 regular conjugation patterns and 66 irregular conjugation patterns, that is 69 different formations if my calculator is correct which is a long way from the 1001 Spanish verbs in the title. This being the case all you would need are the conjugation patterns for these 69 and lists containing regular -ar,-er and -ir verbs and irregular verbs for each irregularity.

The biggest problem that faces most, if not all, students of Spanish is that of actually learning verbs and how they are conjugated. Having all the verb sheets you need is great but unless you have an effective method of learning them you will still struggle. For years the only way to learn verbs was to recite and recite some more until you had memorized them…very tedious and boring, not to mention time consuming!

Well this has all changed with a revolutionary new software program that not only focuses the mind on specific problem areas but does so without the student ever becoming bored and the results are fast too with many users reporting excellent results. This revolutionary verb training software is called verbarrator and it demotes verb books and other verb programs to being only needed as reference tools.

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For further reading why not read my post about why the Spanish verb haber is the most important verb in the Spanish language.

Spanish Past Tense

The Spanish past tense throws up a problem for many students and that is whether they should use the imperfect or preterite?

In Spanish, the two simple past tenses that are predominantly used, are called the Imperfect and the Preterite and it is perfectly understandable for students, who are learning about past tenses for the first time, to be unsure as to which of these two tenses to use and when.

It goes without saying that both tenses are used to describe past actions or states but each is used differently and the following rules will hopefully clear up any confusion.

When to Use the Preterite

The preterite tense is used to express an action that was completed at some time in the past, listed here are some specific uses and examples:

• When referring to a series of actions in the past:
  • Me desayuné, limpié la casa y me fui a la estación – I had breakfast, cleaned the house, and went to the station.

• When referring to the beginning or the end of a past event:
  • La fiesta empezó a las diez – The party began at 10:00

• When referring to things that are seen as being complete:
  • Dejó el trabajo hace un año – You left the job a year ago

When to Use the Imperfect
The imperfect tense expresses an action or state  that was ongoing during the past and if it is uncertain whether it has been completed. Specific uses and examples are listed below:

• To explain an action that a person did in the past habitually:
  • Cuando estábamos en el colegio, jugábamos al fútbol todos los jueves. – When we were at school, we used to play football every Thursday

• To refer to an action without making reference to an end or a beginning:
  • Mi mujer tenía dolores de cabeza frecuentes – My wife had frequent headaches

• When referring to actions that were taking place simultaneously in the past:
  • Mi hijo miraba televisión y mi hija cantaba – My son was watching television and my daughter was singing

• When describing physical, emotional or mental states or conditions:
  • Estaba tan feliz que quería llorar – I was so happy that I wanted to cry

• When referring to a past time:
  • Eran las ocho y media de la tarde – It was 8:30 p.m.
  • Era la una de la mañana – It was 1:00 a.m.

• When describing an action or state that happened at some point in the past and that lasted for a certain amount of time and that happened prior to another past action.
  • Hacía todo el día que esperando cuando mi mujer llegó – I had been waiting all day when my when arrived

Hopefully, these guidelines will provide the clarity you need.

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How to Conjugate Ser in the Preterite Tense

Learning how to conjugate ser in the preterite tense can be a little confusing for students for two reasons. And they are that -

• the preterite conjugation of ser is highly irregular
• it shares the exact same conjugation as the Spanish verb ir, meaning ‘to go’.

The first reason shouldn’t come as a surprise to most students who have encountered ser when studying conjugations in other tenses as it is one of the most irregular verbs in Spanish, but the degree of irregularity in the preterite still surprises most of them.

The second reason is generally the most confusing aspect of ser in the preterite as the question that is often asked is whether it means ‘was’ or ‘went’?. Once explained however, the confusion is short lived. Although, before you are enlightened further, with the use of some examples, we should look at how ser in conjugated in the preterite first of all!

The Preterite Form of Ser (…and Ir!)

• fui - I was
• fuiste - you was
• fue - he was
• fuimos - we were
• fuisteis - you were
• fueron - they were

Now that you have been shown the conjugation above that is used for both ser and ir, I should perhaps explain how you can tell whether it is ‘was’ or ‘went’ that is being used.

All you need do is simply listen to, or read, the context in which the verb is being used!

For example:

• Ella fue una mal mujer – which means, she was a bad woman.
• Ella fue al mercado which means, she went to the market

As you can see both sentences begin with the same conjugation but the context defines which verb is being used. I mean, it would make no sense what so ever to say ’she went a bad woman’ or ’she was to the market’ now…would it?

If you would like a little more of an insight into how to conjugate in the Spanish preterite tense or better still, check out my review of a training tool that will help you master Spanish verbs QUICKLY, in all tenses, including the preterite, by reading my Verbarrator Review.