Present Tense: Regular -AR Verbs
Present Tense: Regular -AR Verbs
Spanish sorts every regular verb into one of three families by its infinitive ending — -ar, -er, or -ir — and each family conjugates on a single predictable pattern, unlike English verbs, which barely change at all across persons.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
hablar (to speak) — six distinct endings, where English mostly has one
hablo, hablas, habla, hablamos, habláis, hablan
I speak, you speak, he/she speaks, we speak, you all speak, they speak
Drop the -ar and add -o, -as, -a, -amos, -áis, -an — six different endings, one for each grammatical person. English, by contrast, uses the exact same verb form ('speak') for I/you/we/they, and only changes anything at all for the third person singular ('he speaks'). Because Spanish's endings alone identify the subject, native speakers can drop the pronoun entirely — a habit English's nearly-invariant verb forms could never support.
Same ending pattern, any -ar verb
trabajar → trabajo, trabajas, trabaja... / estudiar → estudio, estudias, estudia...
the same six endings apply to any -ar verb
Because the pattern is fully mechanical, you don't need to memorize each -ar verb's conjugation individually — just memorize the six endings once (-o, -as, -a, -amos, -áis, -an) and apply them to any new -ar verb's stem the moment you learn it. This is considerably more to memorize up front than English ever asks of you, but it pays off in being able to drop pronouns and read subject information straight off the verb.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| Spanish | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| hablar | ah-BLAR | to speak |
| trabajar | trah-bah-HAR | to work |
| estudiar | es-too-dee-AR | to study |
| cocinar | koh-see-NAR | to cook |
| hablo | AH-bloh | I speak |
| hablas | AH-blahs | you speak |
| habla | AH-blah | he/she speaks |
| hablamos | ah-BLAH-mohs | we speak |
| hablan | AH-blahn | they speak |