subject: Spanish Verb Conjugations [print this page] Spanish Verb Conjugations, where should we start?
Well, the first thing we should not do is presume that you know what a conjugation is, never mind Spanish verb conjugations, so here is a brief explanation or definition if you prefer.
A conjugation, where linguistics is concerned, is the formation of a specific form of a verb, normally comprising of the stem of a verb and one of various different endings that when attached to the stem indicate the task performer and tense amongst other things.
Another aspect of Spanish verbs you need to be aware of is that unlike English verbs they are not preceded by the word 'to', which is what defines a verb in English.
In Spanish the 'to' part of the verb is at the end of the verb stem, in the example that follows the regular Spanish verb 'hablar', is used which means to speak and the stem of 'hablar' is 'habl-' and the ending, in this case '-ar' is the equivalent of the English 'to'.
With Spanish verb conjugations it is far easier to understand who is performing an action than in English; for example if we take the verb 'hablar' and compare the Spanish verb conjugations to its English equivalent, you will see that apart from the third person singular there are no changes at all to the English verb stem, making it practically impossible to tell who is performing the task without the use of a pronoun.
However, with Spanish verb conjugations a specific ending is attached to the stem of the verb to indicate who or what is performing the task.
yo hablo - I speak; tu (accent on the 'u') hablas - you speak (familiar); el(accent on the 'e')/ ella/ usted habla - he/ she/ speaks, and you speak (polite); nosotros hablamos - we speak; vosotros hablais(accent on the second 'a') - You speak (familiar), ellos/ ellas/ ustedes hablan - they/ and you speak (polite)
In Latin and South American Spanish speaking countries it is quite common for the pronouns to still be used all the time, but Castilian Spanish (the base language) tends to no longer use pronouns and they are generally dropped completely other than when to avoid ambiguity or if being polite.
The explanation above is probably the most basic explanation of Spanish verb conjugations I can give, there are, of course, regular '-ir' and '-er' verbs that have different verb endings and also irregular verbs that unfortunately must be learned individually as they do not follow regular conjugational patterns.
