Regular Verbs in Spanish: Conjugation, List and Sentences

Just like in English, there are rules for tenses and verbs in Spanish. The present tense itself has three major conjugation moods: the indicative, the subjunctive and the imperative mode. This lesson will teach you how to conjugate regular verbs in Spanish in the indicative, which is one of the simplest and the most commonly used in the language. This lesson includes a video with interesting examples and explanations, as well as many other resources like pictures and interactive quizzes. Let’s begin…

Introductory video: Conjugating Regular Verbs in Spanish

Regular verbs in Spanish are very common and useful in everyday interactions. We will begin the lesson with a short video explaining how they work and how to conjugate these verbs in the present tense. Remember, you can activate the subtitles if you need to translate or check how something is written in the language, and please make sure to stick until the end of the video to understand the rest of the lesson more easily.

The difference between Regular and Irregular Verbs in Spanish

All Spanish verbs have something called RAÍZ or a stem at the beginning, just like AM- in AMAR. The majority of verbs in the language will not suffer any stem change when conjugated, which is why they are considered regular verbs. For these type of verbs, the ending or last part of the word will always be modified depending on the subject that the action is targeting. Take a look at the picture below. It explains some differences between regular and irregular verbs in Spanish, as well as how to conjugate the verbs “AMAR” (to love) and “SER” (to be).

Conjugating -AR regular verbs in Spanish

Words like AMAR (to love), BESAR (to kiss) and PLANEAR (to plan) are common examples of -AR regular verbs in Spanish. All the letters, except for the AR ending, are part of the verb’s stem or “raíz del verbo”. To conjugate AR ending verbs, we will replace the -AR suffix for a specific group of letters following specific rules. For example, AMAR will be conjugated as AMO for the subject pronoun “YO”, which is why we will say “Yo amo” but not “Yo amar“, replacing the -AR ending for the vowel -O.

Basically, you just need to replace the AR ending for a form that suits the subject in the sentence. There is no need to use a pronoun all the time, and actually they could be omitted in most sentences and the meaning would not be affected. However, it is important to use the right conjugation for the subject we are referring to, even if we do not mention it. Here is a short list of regular verbs in Spanish with AR ending:

CAMINAR (to walk), CANTAR (to sing), LUCHAR (to fight), ABRAZAR (to hug), BAILAR (to dance), TOMAR (to take/to drink), BAÑAR (to bathe) and CUIDAR (to take care).

Sentences with Regular verbs in Spanish with AR endings

Here are some examples of sentences applying the conjugation rules for regular verbs in Spanish with AR endings. Pay attention to the way the ending must be modified based on the pronoun (subject) in the sentence. Click on the PLAY to listen to the examples

Conjugating -ER ending regular verbs in Spanish

The rules are quite similar for ER ending regular verbs like COMER (to eat). For instance, the conjugation for the pronoun YO would be formed by replacing ER for the vowel –O, just like this: “Yo como”. As you can see, all AR, ER and IR ending regular verbs in Spanish will be conjugated the same way for the pronoun YO, so all you have to memorize are those endings that are different for each type of verb. It is possible to substitute the pronoun for a name or an object that agrees with it, for example: Ana (Ella), La flauta (ella), El perro (Él) and so on. Other common ER ending regular verbs in Spanish are:

BEBER (to drink), LEER (to read), CORRER (to run), DEPENDER (to depend), TEMER (to fear), COSER(to sew), APRENDER (to learn), VENDER (to sell).

Sentences in Spanish with ER ending verbs in the present tense

Here are some more sentences applying the rules for ER ending regular verbs in Spanish to COMER (to eat).

Conjugating -IR ending regular verbs in Spanish

Finally, the last group of regular verbs will be formed by regular verbs in Spanish ending in IR like VIVIR (to live). Again, we will replace the IR ending depending on the subject of the sentence. Make sure to compare these endings with the ones above so that you can see how similar the three different conjugations are (with the variation of a vowel or a tilde). Being aware of these similarities may help you apply these rules more easily.

Some important regular verbs in Spanish with IR ending are:

ABRIR (to open), PARTIR (to divide/to chop), PERMITIR (to allow/to permit), DECIDIR (to decide), SUBIR (to go up/to raise) and RECIBIR (to get/to obtain).

Sentences with regular verbs ending in IR in Spanish

Related Spanish Worksheets:

• Basic Sentence Structure in Spanish – PDF Worksheet
• Conjugating -AR Regular Verbs in Spanish (Present) – PDF Worksheet
• Conjugating -ER Regular Verbs in Spanish (Present) – PDF Worksheet
• Conjugating -IR Regular Verbs in Spanish (Present) – PDF Worksheet