Spanish Verb Conjugations - The Basics

Spanish Verb Conjugations are NOT, as you may have thought, something to be afraid of
when learning Spanish. In fact they will actually make learning Spanish a whole lot easier
as they will help to clearly define who or what performs an action and when that action
takes place, unlike in English where there can be a great deal of ambiguity.

Spanish Verb Conjugations, where should we start?

Well, the first thing we should not do is presume that you know what a conjugation is, irrespective
whether they are Spanish verb conjugations or not, so here is a brief explanation or, definition if
you prefer.

A conjugation, where linguistics is concerned, is the formation of a specific form of a verb,

normally comprising of the stem of a verb and one of various different endings that, when
attached to the stem, will indicate who or what is, was or will be performing a task; and it also
indicates when, as you can see, the action takes place, more often referred to as the tense.

Another aspect of Spanish verbs you need to be aware of is that they are not preceded by the
word 'to', unlike English verbs, which is what usually denotes that a word is a verb in English.

In Spanish the 'to' part of the verb is at the end of the verb stem: In the example that follows, the
Spanish verb 'hablar', which is a regular Spanish verb meaning to speak, is used. The stem of
'hablar' is, 'habl-' and the ending, in this case '-ar' is the equivalent of the English 'to'.

With Spanish verb conjugations it is far easier to understand who is performing an action than in
English; for example if we take the verb 'hablar' and compare the Spanish verb conjugations to its
English equivalent, you will see that apart from the third person singular there are no changes at
all to the English verb stem, making it practically impossible to tell who is performing the task
without the use of a pronoun.

With Spanish verb conjugations, however, a specific ending is attached to the stem of the verb to
indicate who or what is performing the task.

Yo hablo - I speak

Tú hablas - You speak

Él/ Ella/ Usted habla - He/ She/ You speaks

Nosotros hablamos - We speak

Vosotros habláis - You speak

Ellos/ Ellas/ Ustedes hablan - They/You speak

In Latin and South American Spanish speaking countries it is quite common for the pronouns to
still be used all the time, but speakers of Castilian Spanish no longer uses pronouns and they are
dropped completely other than to avoid ambiguity or if being polite.

And that is probably the most basic explanation of Spanish verb conjugations I can give, there are
of course regular '-ir' and '-er' verbs that have different verb endings and also irregular verbs that
unfortunately must be learned individually as they do not follow regular conjugational patterns, but
in all Spanish verb conjugations should not be feared but embraced as they will actually make
learning and understanding spoken Spanish much easier.
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