SHARE

Essential Spanish Grammar – Regular and Irregular Verbs

The correct use of verb forms in Spanish is difficult not only for people who are learning the language, but also for native speakers. There are many verb forms, but most fall into two conjugation forms: regular verbs and irregular verbs. The Spanish language has few freedoms. In Spanish, you would never hear made-up verbs like "I'll Google you." Instead, there is an institution called the Real Academia Española (RAE) that has the last word about what is right and what is not regarding the language.

The endings of the non-personal forms of the verbs in Spanish are:

A regular verb fits in all its forms to the model that corresponds to its verbal ending. For each regular verb, there is a verb used as a conjugation model:

The participle of regular verbs ends in "-ado" for verbs of the first conjugation and in "-ido" for verbs for the second and third conjugations.

An irregular verb is one that when conjugated, undergoes changes in its root in some verbal forms or takes different endings and suffixes of the regular model that correspond to its ending. Example:

There are irregular verbs that have their own irregularities. These are called "verbos de irregularidad propia". There are less than thirty of them. These are some examples:

Some irregular verbs are:

One common mistake that English-speaking learners make is to keep the verb in its infinitive form when conjugation is needed. For example, let's take the verb "comer", which is translated as "to eat". We would say in English:

I eat You eat

In Spanish, the word "comer' is used only as the infinitive form. The correct verbal forms are: Yo como Tú comes

Only the root remains unchanged, as "comer" is a regular verb. Simple and compound tenses in Spanish, as in English, depend on whether the tense is indicated by an ending on the verb itself (simple), or by an auxiliary verb (compound). The auxiliary verb in Spanish is "haber". The conjugations of the three models of regular verbs, for all tenses, are in the Appendix below. These correspond to the three moods, indicative, subjunctive, and imperative, as well as the non-personal form, as they appear in the most recent edition of the dictionary of the RAE.

APPENDIX AMAR (MODEL VERB OF THE FIRST CONJUGATION) Mood: INDICATIVE Simple tenses

Compound tenses

Mood: SUBJUNCTIVE Simple tenses

Compound tenses

Mood: IMPERATIVE ama  (tú)            amad (vosotros) ame (usted)       amen (ustedes)

NON-PERSONAL FORMS

TEMER (MODEL VERB OF THE SECOND CONJUGATION) Mood: INDICATIVE Simple tenses

Compound tenses

Mood: SUBJUNCTIVE Simple tenses

Compound tenses

Mood: IMPERATIVE teme (tú)            temed(vosotros) tema (usted)       teman (ustedes)

NON-PERSONAL FORMS

PARTIR (MODEL VERB OF THE THIRD CONJUGATION) Mood: INDICATIVE Simple tenses

Compound tenses

Mood: SUBJUNCTIVE Simple tenses

Compound tenses

Mood: IMPERATIVE parte (tú)            partid(vosotros) parta (usted)       partan (ustedes)

NON-PERSONAL FORMS