Regular Present Tense

-ar Verbs

Let’s talk about English verbs before discussing Spanish verbs. In both English and Spanish, there are six persons:

I we (you & I, Juan & I)

you you all (you & your friend)

he, she, it they (Juan & Maria)

(Juan, Maria, the book)

All persons have their own verb form:

I am we are

you are you all are

he, she, it is they 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:

I we yonosotros

you you all tú vosotros

he, she, it they él, ella ellos

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 hablo nosotros hablamos

tú hablas vosotros habláis

él, ella habla ellos hablan

Let’s look at how we get all those verb forms:

yo hablo nosotros hablamos

tú hablas vosotros habláis

él, ella habla ellos 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)

nado nadamos llego llegamos

nadas nadáis llegas llegáis

nada nadan llega llegan

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 hablo nosotros hablamos

tú hablas vosotros habláis

él, ella, Ud. habla ellos, 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