The Present Tense in Spanish

Spanish verbs are divided into three categories:

• -ar verbs like hablar (to speak)
• -er verbs such as comer (to eat)
• -ir verbs such as vivir (to live)

To conjugate or form the present tense in Spanish you remove the ending (-ar, -er, -ir) and add a new ending to the stem of the verb. The present endings in Spanish match the subject and verb type (-ar, -er, -ir).

The stem is what is left after you remove the -ar, -er, -ir ending.

Verb Stem

Hablar Habl-

Comer Com-

Vivir Viv-

Verbs ending in -ar, -er and -ir all have different endings that identify the subject. Let’s look at some examples of -ar, -er and -ir verb conjugation.

The present tense in Spanish is similar to the present tense in English. We use the Spanish present tense to express the following:

• Things that are generally true
• Things that are true now
• Things that happen all the time or habits
• To talk about current activities that may not be happening right now
• To talk about things you are planning to do

Here are a few example sentences in the present tense:

Spanish has many irregular verbs in the present tense. They do not follow the rules above.

Here are 3 important irregular verbs that you will need to memorize. They are used often.

Learning how to conjugate verbs in the present tense in Spanish will help your conversation skills. You can tell your new friends what you are doing, what you like to do and what you plan to do this weekend. Get out there now and start speaking Spanish!