Spanish Verbs
Conjugate Spanish Verbs
There are three main categories of Spanish verbs. These are verbs that end in -ar, -er and -ir. For example:
- cantar - to sing
- comer - to eat
- vivir - to live
Verbs in such a form as above are know as the infinitive.
Spanish Verb Conjugation
Spanish verb endings (the -ar, -er and -ir part) change according to the person or thing being spoken about.
Verb endings also change depending on the time when the actions take place. This is known as tense and encompasses such time concepts as past, present and future.
It is worth noting that the endings of Spanish verbs also change according to mood: as in the subjunctive and imperative. These concepts are generally considered to be more advanced and so should be concentrated on at a later date by those new to learning Spanish.
All of the above ways of changing verb endings are known as Spanish verb conjugation.
Spanish verbs are further categorised into regular and irregular verb groups. For each regular verb type and tense, there are a specific set of rules as to how the verb ending changes, hence there is regularity. Irregular verbs are a little more confusing for the beginner as they follow less stringent rules, however in time you can begin to see patterns in the irregularity of the irregular verbs! Knowing the rules verbs will help you to conjugate Spanish verb endings.
The first step in learning about Spanish verbs is to learn the present tense for the regular -ar, -er and -ir verbs and a few key irregular verbs such as ser (to be), estar (to be) and tener (to have). Afterwards, other irregular verbs and verb tenses should be learned.
Please follow the links below for examples of regular and irregular Spanish verb form conjugations.