24 Topic 1 Present Tense of Regular Verbs

Los verbos regulares y el presente

The anatomy of a Spanish verb.

The verb in its infinitive form indicates the action or state of being, with no reference to who or what performs the action or when it is done (present, past or future tense).

• The verb has two parts
  • The stem
  • The ending

• Infinitives in English are indicated by to: to speak, to eat, to live. In Spanish, all verbs in the infinitive have three endings:
  • -ar          Hablar to speak
  • -er          Comer to eat
  • -ir           Vivir to live
• To conjugate a verb means to give the various forms of the verb the corresponding subject:
  • I speak, you speak, he/she speaks, etc.
    Yo hablo, tú hablas, él/ella habla, etc.
  • I eat, you eat, he/she eats, etc.
    Yo como, tú comes, él/ella come, etc.
  • I live, you live, he/she lives, etc.
    Yo vivo, tú vives, él/ella vive, etc.
• There are three classifications of verbs.
  • Regular
    when conjugated into a person or tense, the stem is not impacted
  • Irregular
    when conjugated, first person singular has a “g” or a “y”
  • Stem-Changing
    when conjugated, there are changes IN the stem
• The conjugated verbs in Spanish indicate person and tense, therefore, a personal pronoun is not needed unless you need to clarify the subject: él, ella, ellos/as.

Common regular -ar verbs in the present tense

Common regular -er verbs in the present tense

Common regular -ir verbs in the present tense

Practícalo…

Read outloud the following phrases and identify the endings