Verbs: those words that tell us what someone or something does, how they do it, what happens.  It’s the action in a sentence.

In English, we only conjugate “to be” and a couple of other verbs differently, but for most verbs, we just add an -s to the third person singular of a verb in the present tense (“I eat” becomes “she eats”).  In contrast, all Spanish verbs must be conjugated. To be precise: we have 6 different conjugations for each subject pronoun (Yo, Tú, Él/Ella/Usted, Nosotros/Nosotras, Ustedes, Ellos/Ellas).

Note: our site is intended for students learning the Latin American variety of Spanish, so we’ve chosen to omit Vosotros/Vosotras in our lessons because this subject pronoun’s conjugation is only used in Spain. It’s also worth mentioning that our conjugation tables are set up to differentiate between Ellos/Ellas and Ustedes.  We’ve chosen to structure our conjugations in this way because Ustedes essentially replaces Vosotros/Vosotras in Latin America. However, the conjugation is the same as for Ellos/Ellas.

 

We have different kinds of verbs in Spanish. Among them:

 

Regular verbs

Irregular verbs

Stem-changing verbs

Reflexive verbs

Auxiliary verbs

Impersonal verbs

Verbs that take an indirect object (ie: “gustar”)

 

In this brief introduction we’re going to talk a bit about each one. Before getting started, remember that the complete form of the verb, known as the infinitive, ends in one of three ways in Spanish: -ar, -er, or -ir.  These infinitive endings form the basis for verb conjugation.

 

Regular verbs all follow the same conjugation patterns.  That is what makes them “regular”.  Remove the -ar, -er, or -ir at the end of the infinitive and add the corresponding conjugation ending for each subject pronoun.  See the example below for three common regular verbs:

Irregular verbs don’t follow the same pattern as regular verbs.  Some irregular verbs are only slightly different from regular verbs because they have a simple spelling change or maybe they have a unique conjugation in the ‘yo’ form.  Other irregular verbs are conjugated differently for each subject pronoun and don’t seem to exhibit any kind of pattern.  You will need to learn which verbs are irregular and in many cases, you must simply memorize their unique conjugations.  Some of the most common irregular verbs are ser, estar (to be), ir, (to go), saber (to know), dar (to give), conocer (to know), tener (to have), among others.

 

Stem-changing verbs are often considered irregular verbs because they too deviate from the patterns associated with regular verbs.  However, their -ar, -er, and -ir conjugation endings remain the same as regular verbs, but the stem of the verb changes for all subject pronouns except Nosotros/Nosotras. Examples of popular stem-changing verbs include querer (to want), sentir (to feel), jugar (to play), dormir (to sleep), pedir (to ask). 

Reflexive verbs indicate that the subject (someone or something) does an action to itself. These verbs always end in “se”: irse (to leave), sentarse (to sit), bañarse (to take a shower/to bathe), quedarse (to stay). They become two-word verbs when we conjugate them because we add a reflexive pronoun that changes depending on the person:

Auxiliary verbs, as in English, are those which sort of lose their meaning and accompany other verbs to intervene in different tenses. The most common auxiliary verbs in Spanish are haber, ser, ir and, estar.

Impersonal verbs are those which can only be conjugated in the third person singular. They don’t have a subject and they mostly refer to meteorological phenomena.

Verbs like “gustar” take an indirect object pronoun (me, te, le, nos, les) depending on who is doing the action.  In this sense, we don’t conjugate “gustar” as other verbs since the subject of the verb is the object (what I or he or we or they like). This means we typically only have “gusta” (singular) and “gustan” (plural).

Now that you’ve been introduced to Spanish verb conjugations, including 6 different groups of verbs, you’re probably wondering how to learn to conjugate Spanish verbs.  We’ve got several lessons to help you out, like how to conjugate to be (or Ser / Estar) or maybe you need to review your Subject Pronouns  if you aren’t familiar with that yet.  Remember that the basis for all Spanish verb conjugations is identifying the verb correctly and following the predetermined -ar, -er, and -ir endings for regular verbs and memorizing any irregulars.