How to conjugate regular -ar verbs in the Present Tense.
You've finished the introduction, so now let's get to work. In this unit you will learn how to use regular verbs in the present tense. Do you remember from the introduction that there are three types of Spanish verbs, -ar, -er, and -ir?
Let's begin with verbs whose infinitive ends in -ar.
The most common verbs in Spanish are those that end in -ar, and many of them follow the normal rules for conjugation. We will begin now with the regular form, and postpone coverage of irregular verbs until a later unit.
Our first example is the verb hablar , which means to speak . If you remove the -ar ending, you are left with the verb root "habl".
To form a regular conjugation of an -ar verb, start with the root and add the following endings based on the desired subject.
So the sentence Hablo español means I speak Spanish , while Hablas español means You speak Spanish .
As we noted in the introductory unit, the subject pronoun is implied. It is usually omitted from the sentence, although it sometimes appears for added emphasis. It can also be added in cases where it is not obvious what subject is intended, such as he or she (él / ella).
Take a close look at the normal forms above.
Note that the 1st person singular ends in -o. You will soon see that this is the case for all present tense regular verbs, not just the -ar variety.
Also notice that the other five forms each begin with the letter "a", left over from the verb's original -ar ending. This too is a common pattern that you will see again.
If these verb forms are new to you, you will need to spend some time committing the endings to memory. Then you can take as much time as you need to practice them in the exercises. Before you begin, let's talk about one of the endings that you do not need to worry about for now.
You may be aware that the vosotros pronoun and the corresponding verb forms are used almost exclusively in Spain, and not in the many other Spanish-speaking countries of the world.
Vosotros is the informal plural version of "you", sort of like you all . Outside Spain, ustedes , (the formal form for plural you ) is used in both formal and informal conversations. The ustedes form uses the same conjugation as ellos ( they ) in the table above.
Although VerbMaestro will show you how to form the vosotros conjugations, those forms will not appear in the exercises or quizzes, so for now you can ignore them.
Just to be sure you understand how the pattern works, let's look at one more verb: comprar , which means to buy .
