2. What is a verb?
Verbs are words that describe actions.
Like the commercial says, verbs are “what
you do”. They are either “irregular verbs”
like ser and tener which you have already
learned , or “regular verbs like verbs that
end in –ar.
Verbs can either be in the infinitive form or
the conjugated form. The infinitive form is
the raw form of the verb, all English
infinitives start with “to”.
3. Why do we conjugate?
However, you can not use the infinitive form in a
sentence:
I to speak Spanish.
What’s wrong with the above sentence?
.
TO CONJUGATE A VERB YOU CHANGE, OR
CONJUGATE, THE VERB TO MATCH A GIVEN
SUBJECT.
I speak Spanish/ I am speaking Spanish
4. How do we conjugate a verb?
Spanish infinitives typically end in either –ar, -ir or –er .
When we conjugate a regular Spanish verb we divide
the verb into 2 parts, a stem and an ending take off the
last two letters and add different ones.
Yo hablar Español.= I to speak Spanish
Yo hablo Español= I speak or am speaking
Spanish
We took the ar off the end and added the
letter o….now the sentence make sense.
5. Many Spanish verbs ending in –ar
follow a regular pattern
The verb hablar (to speak) is conjugated below.
You have to memorize the fact that verbs ending in –ar
in the infinitive follow the “normal” pattern of conjugation,
meaning you can just take the –ar ending off the infinitive
and add the following endings to the stem:
hablar (to speak)
yo hablo nosotros/as habl amos
tú hablas vosotros/as habl éis
él/ella/U. habla ellos/ellas/Uds. hablan
6. Most of the –ar verbs you will learn
are activities
On page 57 of your textbook common –ar verbs
are listed. Try to guess which verb fits in the
following sentences and change them to match
the subject:
El ____________ la radio.
Nosotros ______________café en la cafetería.
Ellas ___________________el futból.
Ud._____________________un lapíz para
escribir.
7. Practice makes Perfect!
The only way to learn verb conjugations is to practice
often, much like you would to learn a piece of music.
The link below brings to an excellent website where you
can practice all Spanish verbs, and gives you helpful
comparisons to English verbs:
http://www.conjuguemos.com
