1 Verbs – An Introduction
Verbs – An Introduction
Verbs are action words. Some examples in English are to do, to make, to eat, to sing. These verbs are made up of two parts – the verb itself (do, make, eat, sing) and the word “to”. These two parts together make up the infinitive of the verb (the infinitive means that we don’t know who is doing the action, or when they are doing it).
When we want to use verbs in English, most of the time we take away the “to” and add personal pronouns before the verb. Sometimes we add “s” or other letters to the verb: she makes
Spanish verbs work in a similar way: they are made up of two parts (which form the infinitive), and they use personal pronouns. However, they look different to English verbs.
There are three main types of Spanish (infinitive) verbs: ar verbs, er verbs and ir verbs.
- ar verbs: the verb ends with ar – estar, andar, hablar, bailar
- er verbs: the verb ends with er – comer, aprender, leer, entender
- ir verbs: the verb ends with ir – vivir, abrir, compartir, mentir
The ar / er / ir act a bit like the “to” in English, and what’s left over (est, com, viv) is like the main part of the verb. Despite these similarities, there are many differences when it comes to conjugating Spanish verbs. Conjugation means changing the form of the verb to give information about who is doing the action, and when. In English, this is pretty straightforward, as most of the time, the verb doesn’t change much:
I eat
You eat
He eats
She eats
We eat
You (all) eat
They eat
We will now look at how to conjugate verbs in Spanish.
Conjugating Verbs in Spanish
There are a couple of steps to follow when you want to conjugate a Spanish verb.
- Figure out if the verb is an ar, er or ir verb
- Remove the ar, er or ir from the verb, leaving just the front part of the verb (this is called the stem)
- Add specific endings to the stem
Number 3 on this list can be tricky, as there are different endings for every personal pronoun in every tense.
