Conjugating Spanish Verbs: Introduction
Verbs are very important to every language. You could know the definition of every word in an entire language, but if you can conjugate verbs, you will never be able to form a sentence and make any sense of the words.
If Spanish is your second language, you have probably never heard of conjugation verbs before now. You do it in English, too, you just don’t realize it.
Think about the word to be. If you are talking about being tired, would you use it the same way in all these sentence structures?
I be tired.
You be tired.
He/ she be tired.
We be tired.
They be tired.
Clearly it doesn’t work. In fact, we didn’t use the word be in any of these sentences. This is why it’s necessary to conjugate the verb. Here is how you would correctly say them in English.
I am tired.
You are tired.
He/ she is tired.
We are tired.
They are tired.
The same goes for Spanish. There are actually two words for the verb to be: ser and estar. With these sentences, you would use the verb estar. Learn more about ser and estar here.
Here is what is would look like in Spanish.
Yo estoy cansado.
Tú estás cansado.
Él/ ella./ Ud. Está cansado.
Nosotros estamos cansado.
Ellos/ ellas/ Uds. Estan cansado.
Notice how we used to words Yo, tú, él, ella, Ud., nosotros, ellos, ellas, and Uds. These are called pronouns and are important in language.
Another important aspect of conjugating verbs is the tense. There are many tenses in Spanish including present tense, preterit tense, future tense, imperfect tense, perfect tense, and others. Here is the difference between present tense and past tense in English using the same sentence structure as earlier.
I am tired. I was tired.
You are tired. You were tired.
He/ she is tired. He/ she was tired.
We are tired. We were tired.
They are tired. They were tired.
Here we have been using the verb estar, which means to be, as an example. Estar is an irregular verb. This means that it is conjugated differently than regular verbs. There are three types of regular verbs, -ir, -er, and –ar. Almost all –ir verbs are conjugated the same and the same goes with –er verb and –ar verbs.
There are many irregular verbs that will cause you trouble. You will have to memorize them differently.
Verbs are important in every language and are often the most difficult part of any language. The good news is that once you get verbs down and are able to use them correctly, you should be able to communicate yourself clearly.
Continue your study of Spanish verbs: