Regular Present Tense -ar Verbs

Let’s talk about English verbs before discussing Spanish verbs. In both English and Spanish, there are six persons: Iwe (you & I, Juan & I) youyou all (you & your friend) he, she, itthey (Juan & Maria) (Juan, Maria, the book)

All persons have their own verb form: I amwe are you areyou all are he, she, it isthey are It would be incorrect to say “I are” or “you is” or “we am.” You have to use a particular verb form with a particular subject.

Here are the Spanish pronouns that correspond to the English pronouns: Iweyonosotros youyou alltúvosotros he, she, ittheyél, ellaellos

Here you have the verb “to talk” with the English subject pronouns: I talk we talk you talk you all talk he, she, it talks they talk Now look at the Spanish verb “hablar,” which means “to talk”: yo hablonosotros hablamos tú hablasvosotros habláis él, ella hablaellos hablan

Let’s look at how we get all those verb forms: yo hablonosotros hablamos tú hablasvosotros habláis él, ella hablaellos hablan What you do is take off the –ar and add the following endings: -o-amos -as-áis -a-an

-o-amos -as-áis -a-an That’s how you conjugate any verb that ends with –ar: nadar (to swim)llegar (to arrive) nadonadamosllegollegamos nadasnadáisllegasllegáis nadanadanllegallegan

There’s one more thing you need to know before you’re ready for a practice exercise. A lot of languages have different ways to say “you” because you show more respect to some people than to others. In the southern U.S., the way we do that is by saying “ma’am” and “sir.” Spanish does it by having two ways to say “you” and two ways to say “you all.” “Tú” means “you” when you’re talking to a friend. “Usted” (abbreviated “Ud.”) means “you” when you’re talking to someone older or in authority, someone you call “Mr.” or “Mrs.” or “Dr.” rather than by the person’s first name. “Vosotros” means “you all” when you’re talking to a group of friends. “Ustedes” (abbreviated “Uds.”) means “you all” when you’re talking to a group of people who are older or in authority.

Now look how “Ud.” and “Uds.” fit into the verb paradigm: yo hablonosotros hablamos tú hablasvosotros habláis él, ella, Ud. hablaellos, Uds. hablan In spite of the fact that Ud., like tú, means “you,” it doesn’t get the same verb that tú gets. It gets the verb that él gets. Likewise, in spite of the fact that Uds., like vosotros, means “you all,” it doesn’t get the verb that vosotros gets. It gets the verb that ellos gets.

Regular ar verbs video