The Indicative tense

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
)

Percentage of Verb endings

-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

-AR present simple endings

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”

Answer

“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.

-ER/IR present simple endings

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”

Answer

“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