Content from Importance of Verb Tenses
Last updated on 2025-01-07 | Edit this page
Overview
Questions
- Why do we need to learn how to conjugate?
- What are the Spanish subjects?
Objectives
- Explain how sentences in Spanish use verb tenses
- Explain the Spanish subjects and how they work with verbs
- Learn about verb stems and conjugates
Verb Tenses
In English, we often use verb tenses in sentences. For example, a common sentence to learn english is “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” In Spanish, the sentence structures are often similar if not the same. A key part of learning Spanish is learning how to conjugate verbs.
In English, the sentence is “The cat eats.” The verb of the sentence is eats, and the subject is the cat. Similarly, in Spanish, the sentence is: “El gato come.” The subject of the sentence (“El gato” aka the cat), comes before the verb, “come”.
Identify the subject and the verb of the following sentence:
The bird flies over the house.
The subject is the bird, because it performs the action. The verb is flies, the action of the sentence.
Question
What is the sentence structure for English/Spanish sentences?
object + verb + subject
Spanish subjects
In order to conjugate verbs, a key part we need are the subjects. In English, subjects are typically people. In Spanish, the subjects are:
| I | You | He/She | We | They | You all |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yo | Tú | Él/Ella | Nosotros/as | Ellos/as | Ustedes |
Subjects are important because we need them for verb conjugation. Verb conjugation is the process of changing a verb form to provide information about the action being performed, such as who is performing it, when it is happening, and how it relates to other parts of the sentence. In Spanish, verbs are conjugated to reflect these aspects.
In both English and Spanish, sentences typically follow a subject-verb-object (SVO) structure. Understanding how verbs are conjugated allows you to form coherent and grammatically correct sentences.
Review
How would you refer to your Grandma? Your sisters?
Your Grandma is ella, your sisters are ellas.
Two forms of conjugation
In Spanish, there are two forms of conjugation.
Infinitive Form: The base form of the verb (e.g., “hablar” - to speak). Conjugated Forms: Modified forms of the verb to agree with the subject and indicate the tense (e.g., “yo hablo” - I speak, “tú hablas” - you speak).
While you occasionally use the infinitive form, learning to create conjugated forms is essential to learning how to speak Spanish. Conjugated forms help you express different moods and periods of time during which actions are performed.
The three types of verb endings
In Spanish, verbs have 3 types of endings: 1. -Ar endings 2. -Er endings 3. -Ir endings
The three types of endings will affect how you conjugate different verbs. It is important to conjugate correctly according to the type of ending a verb has, otherwise you may express a different mood than what you mean. Moods will be explained in the next episode. In order to conjugate verbs, you must remove the verb endings. A verb stem is the part of a verb that remains after you remove its ending.
Example
For the verb hablar, its verb stem is habl-
When you conjugate verbs, you will use the verb stem and attach different endings to the stem to create different tenses of the verb. If the concept is difficult to understand, think about the word “cooked”. If we take off “-ed”, we get the verb stem “cook”. Infinitives in English generally translate to “cooking”, or “baking”, etc. If we want to talk about Sheila, we can say, “Sheila cooked the turkey.” This expresses that the turkey is already prepared, and she has finished cooking. We can also say, “Sheila cooks the turkey.” This expresses that she is still cooking the turkey.
Practice
What is the verb stem of the verb pedir?
Pedi-
Practice (continued)
Now that we understand verb stems, and the purpose of conjugation, we will learn how to conjugate in two different tenses in the next episode.
Callout
To learn more about why verbs only have 3 ending types, visit this stack exchange post
Key Points
- Spanish sentence structure typically aligns with English
- Verb conjugation has two forms
- There are three verb endings
- Conjugation involves a verb stem and conjugate
Content from The Indicative tense
Last updated on 2025-01-07 | Edit this page
Overview
Questions
- What does the present simple tense mean?
- Why do we need to conjugate correctly?
- What are moods?
Objectives
- Learn basic verb conjugation
- Learn how to conjugate in the present simple tense
- Learn the difference between the moods
Present Simple Tense
The Present Simple Tense is the most basic tense in Spanish. Its purpose is to describe actions in the present or very near future. For example, in English, using the present simple tense would look something like this:
Callout
The cat eats
The cat swims
Lucy bathes the cat
Lucy bathes
Figure
Here is a pie chart showing what percentage of verbs end with -ar, -er, and -ir
R
pie(
c("-Ar" = 80, "-Er" = 15, "-Ir" = 5),
init.angle = 315,
col = c("pink", "lavender", "skyblue"),
border = FALSE
)
-AR verbs: present simple
In this figure, we can see that -ar verbs are the most common verb ending. To conjugate -ar verbs in the present simple tense, you must first get the word stem. Then, attach the endings in the table below to the verb stem depending on the subject performing the action
| Yo | Tú | Él/Ella | Nosotros | Ellos/as OR Ustedes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -o | -as | -a | -amos | -an |
Question
If the verb for swim is nadar, translate: “Ximena swims”
“Ximena nada”
In the challenge question, our subject is Ximena. Since she is performing the action of swimming, our subject is ella (her). Therefore, we remove the -ar ending of nadar to get the verb stem of nad-, and attach an -a to get nada as our conjugated verb.
-ER/IR verbs: present simple
For verbs that end in -er/-ir, they have the same endings in the present simple tense.
| Yo | Tú | Él/Ella | Nosotros | Ellos/as OR Ustedes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -o | -es | -e | -emos | -en |
Question
If the verb for live is vivir, translate: “Gumo and Ellie live”
“Gumo y Ellie viven”
For this challenge question, the subjects are Gumo and Ellie. Gumo and Ellie live, so they are performing the action of living (vivir). Together, they are the subject “ellos”. If we just referred to Gumo, his subject would be él, and we would say, “Gumo vive.” We remove the -ir verb ending of vivir to get the verb stem viv-, and attach the ending -en.
Moods in Spanish
Some of you may be thinking, why is it so important to attach the correct endings? What happens if we attach er/ir endings to an ar verb?
The reason why this is so important is because attaching the wrong endings can change the mood of the sentence. There are 3 moods in Spanish.
The Indicative Mood
The Indicative mood is the mood that we use for the present simple tense. It is also the most common mood. It is what we use to relay facts and what the speaker is certain of.
For example, “The apple is red” uses the indicative mood because it describes a fact.
Another example is, “I know the muffin man.” This also uses the indicative mood, because I am certain of the fact that I do know the muffin man.
What about if we aren’t so sure of something?
The Subjunctive Mood
The Subjunctive mood is used when we are not so sure of something. It can be used to relay subjectivity, hypothetical situations, opinions, doubt, and more.
An example of the subjunctive mood would be, “I’m not sure if the apple is red.” This is used because we are doubting that the apple is red, or that is subjective.
Another example is, “I think I know the Muffin Man.” If we were to say, “I don’t know the Muffin Man,” we would use the indicative mood, because we are certain of something. Similarly, if we say, “I don’t think I know the Muffin Man,” we use a closed hypothetical, meaning that we are pretty certain of not knowing him, so we use the indicative. However, saying “I think” uses an open hypothethical, because it indicates there are two outcomes that are equally likely: I do know the Muffin Man, and I dont know the Muffin Man.
The Imperative Mood
The Imperative mood isn’t used very often, but we use it to make commands. You will often see it in public, on different signs.
An example of the imperative mood is, “Speak Spanish!”
We cannot form the imperative with the first person, because you cannot command yourself to do something (gramatically-speaking of course)
Why is this important to conjugation?
The moods described above are important to conjugation because to create the subjunctive mood or imperative in different situations, we need to switch the verb endings.
For example, if I were to say, “I know the Muffin Man,” it would look like this:
Callout
Yo conozco al Muffin Man
Here we can see that the verb conocer (to know) is conjugated in the first person present simple. Note that it is also an irregular verb, so instead of “conoco”, we write “conozco.”
However, in the subjunctive, we would write,
Callout
Yo conozca al Muffin Man
We take the verb stem in the first person form, and then drop the ending (-o) and replace it with -a, in order to indicate that we are in the subjunctive mood, and not fully sure if we know him or not.
Discussion
Overall, when first learning Spanish, it is best to use the indicative mood. Once more comfortable, learning the other moods is key to understanding the language more
Key Points
- Most Spanish verbs end in Ar
- The present simple describes actions in the now
- Conjugating verbs correctly is important to avoid misunderstandings