1. Cómo contestar preguntas: ¿Qué + hacer ?
How not to use “hacer” incorrectly in answers

2. ¿Qué haces tú ahora?
What are you doing now?
¿Qué haces tú todos los días?
What do you do every day?
* The pink do in English tells us the tense.

3. ¿Qué haces tú ahora? =
What are you doing now?
The answer to this question almost always takes out the verb “hacer” and replaces it with the action (verb) that answer the question.
I am studying now.
Yo estudio ahora.

4. ¿Qué haces tú ahora? =
What are you doing now?
The only time the verb “hacer” would remain in the answer is if the action that answers the question has the verb ”hacer” as part of the verbal phrase. (i.e. to do homework = hacer la tarea)
I am doing the homework now.
Yo hago la tarea ahora.

5. What did you do last night?
¿Qué hiciste anoche?
What did you do last night?
Hice la tarea. I did the homework.
Estudié. I studied. / I did study.
The pink did in English tells the tense.
The green did in English is part of the verbal phrase: to do homework

6. Time endings of verbs
In order to answer ¿Qué + the present tense of hacer?, you must be able to conjugate –ar, -er, and –ir verbs in the present tense.
You must be able to conjugate –ar, -er, and –ir verbs in all tenses if you wish to answer:
¿Qué +
Preterit ?
Imperfect ?
Future ?
Conditional?

7. A bit about verbs… Most verbs in Spanish are –ar verbs.
There are significantly fewer verbs in Spanish that end in –er and -ir.
Irregularities in verb conjugations must be memorized as you learn a verb. (i.e. irregular “yo” forms in the present tense, such as salir: salgo)
Stem changes that occur in the present tense are either e-ie; e-i; o-ue (u-ue). They occur in a boot pattern, which means no stem changes in the nosotros/vosotros forms. You need to memorize the stem change for each verb.
Stem changes that occur in the preterit tense only happen with some –ir verbs, and follow the slipper pattern or e-i or o-u. This means that only the third persons singular and plural stem change. You need to memorize which –ir verbs have preterit stem changes.
Some verbs have spelling changes to preserve the original sound. These are only important when writing.

8. The good news for you…
The good news is that we are going to focus on regularities rather than on irregularities.
If you can master the regular verbs, you will be able to communicate accurately much of the time.
The time endings for irregular verbs are almost always the same as those for regular verbs.
It is usually the stem that is irregular (except for certain preterit verbs like estar, tener, ser, ir). These are verbs that need to be memorized.