Present Tense/El Presente

Verb Basics

• Verbs are action words.
• Unconjugated Spanish verbs end in -ar, -er, or -ir.
• This is the infinitive form: “to” + [verb]
  • Ex: to talk, to read, to write → caminar, leer, escribir
• When someone or something does an action, you must conjugate the verb accordingly.
• This idea is subject-verb agreement, which is pretty much the same for English.
  • Singular subjects pair with singular verbs.
  • Collective nouns are considered singular
  • Ex: a team, a couple, a crew, a class
  • Plural subjects pair with plural verbs.
• In Spanish, verbs have five specific conjugations based on the subject listed in the next chart.
  • Once the verb is conjugated, you can actually omit the subject because you can tell who or what does the action based on the specific ending.

When to Use the Present Tense

• Talking about actions and events happening right now.

Conjugation

• Swap the “-ar/-er/-ir” with the following endings.
• My future notes will use only use él, nosotros, and ellos in charts. Remember the subjects that share the same conjugation on your own!

*Eso (it) stands for all non-human beings/objects

Irregulars

• Spanish has a tendency to stray away from every grammar rule it has. Pretty much every verb tense has irregulars.
• In the present tense, irregulars come in the form of ==stem changes== that apply to all subjects but nosotros.
• Stem changing means swapping one letter from the verb’s original form.
• There are also %%-go verbs%%: they end in “-go” only in the yo form.

%%-go%% Verbs

*Double vowels in Spanish usually have an “e” that changes to an “i” when conjugated.

==e== → ==ie==

*I can’t snow. You can’t snow. He, she, we, and they can’t snow. Only the sky--a non-human thing--or “it” in general can snow.

@@o@@ → @@ue@@

*Only things ~~can~~ should cost money, so yeah. Also, single things (it) or multiple things (they) can cost money.

**Same as “nevar” (to snow)

e → i

^^u^^ → ^^ue^^

Jugar is literally the only word in the category.

Unique Changes

Flashcards = practice conjugating one verb from each category (including a normal verb)