Conjugating -ar

Verbs

Verbs are action words (talk, walk, run, write, listen, etc.).

In any language, you want the verbs to agree with their subjects. This is called subject-verb agreement.

Remember -- the subject of a sentence tells who / what is doing the action.

We’ve already studied subjects in Spanish. Subjects can be people’s names or other nouns. They can also be pronouns.

There are 3 families of verbs in Spanish.

All verbs fall within one of the following three categories:

-ar verbs-er verbs-ir verbs

All Spanish verbs end in either –ar, -er, or –ir.

hablarcomer

escribir

A Spanish verb that still has the –ar, -er, or –ir attached to the end of it is called an infinitive. An infinitive is an unconjugated verb.

All infinitives mean “to _________.”hablar – to speak

comer – to eatescribir – to write

When you conjugate a verb, you make it agree with its subject.

That’s why we’ve spent so much time studying subjects. In order to make a verb agree with its subject, we’ve got to be able to identify the subject of the sentence.

First, we are going to learn how to conjugate –ar verbs.

It is going to be very important that we remember the subject pronoun chart that we’ve already learned…

SUBJECT PRONOUNS

yo(I) nosotros (we)

tú (you-informal) X Ud. (you-formal) Uds. (you all)

él (he) ellos (they-masc.)

ella (she) ellas (they-fem.)

Once you have identified the subject of the sentence, you want to change the verb to make it agree with its subject.

To conjugate an –ar verb, first you have to take off the –ar ending.

hablar escucharesquiarhabl escuch esqui

Next, you change the ending of the verb by adding on the appropriate new ending.

All –ar verbs use the same set of endings, which are chosen based on the subject of the sentence. This is where the subject pronoun chart comes into play.

-ar verbs

yo -o nosotros -amos tú -as X X Ud. -a Uds. -an él -a ellos -an ella -a ellas -an