Verbs are the engine of every sentence, and the present tense is where your Spanish comes alive. Once you can say who does what, you can talk about your day, your work, your home, and the people around you. This lesson gives you the pieces that unlock hundreds of everyday verbs.
A subject pronoun tells us who performs the action: I, you, he, she, we, they. Spanish has a few more than English because it separates formal from informal and singular from plural. Here is the full set.
| Spanish | English | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| yo | I | Always lowercase (unlike English "I"). |
| tú | you (singular, informal) | Friends, family, kids, peers. |
| él / ella / usted | he / she / you (singular, formal) | usted is polite "you." |
| nosotros / nosotras | we | -as for an all-female group. |
| vosotros / vosotras | you all (informal) | Spain only. |
| ellos / ellas / ustedes | they / you all | ustedes = you all. |
Two ideas matter most here. First, tú vs usted: use tú with people you are close to, and usted to show respect (a stranger, an elder, your boss). Second, vosotros is Spain-only. In Latin America there is no vosotros; everyone uses ustedes for "you all," formal or not.
Here is a friendly surprise: Spanish speakers often drop the pronoun. Because the verb ending already shows who the subject is, hablo español already means "I speak Spanish" — the -o ending says "yo." You add the pronoun only for emphasis or to avoid confusion.
Spanish verbs come in three families, named for their endings: -AR, -ER, -IR. To conjugate a regular verb, drop the ending from the infinitive and add a new one for each subject. For hablar (to speak), the stem is habl-.
| Subject | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| yo | hablo | I speak |
| tú | hablas | you speak |
| él/ella/usted | habla | he/she speaks, you speak |
| nosotros/as | hablamos | we speak |
| vosotros/as | habláis | you all speak |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | hablan | they speak, you all speak |
The endings are the same for every regular -AR verb: -o, -as, -a, -amos, -áis, -an. Learn them once and you can use thousands of verbs. Try two more: trabajar (to work) and estudiar (to study).
| Subject | trabajar | estudiar |
|---|---|---|
| yo | trabajo | estudio |
| tú | trabajas | estudias |
| él/ella/usted | trabaja | estudia |
| nosotros/as | trabajamos | estudiamos |
| vosotros/as | trabajáis | estudiáis |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | trabajan | estudian |
Example: Yo trabajo en Madrid — "I work in Madrid." And Nosotros estudiamos español — "We study Spanish."
The second family ends in -ER. Drop -er and add the new endings to the stem. For comer (to eat), the stem is com-.
| Subject | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| yo | como | I eat |
| tú | comes | you eat |
| él/ella/usted | come | he/she eats, you eat |
| nosotros/as | comemos | we eat |
| vosotros/as | coméis | you all eat |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | comen | they eat, you all eat |
The -ER endings are -o, -es, -e, -emos, -éis, -en. Notice the vowel shifts from a to e compared with -AR verbs. Example: Ella come una manzana — "She eats an apple."
The third family ends in -IR. For vivir (to live), the stem is viv-.
| Subject | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| yo | vivo | I live |
| tú | vives | you live |
| él/ella/usted | vive | he/she lives, you live |
| nosotros/as | vivimos | we live |
| vosotros/as | vivís | you all live |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | viven | they live, you all live |
Good news: -ER and -IR verbs share the same endings except in two spots — nosotros and vosotros. Compare comemos / vivimos and coméis / vivís. Everywhere else they match. Example: Vivimos en México — "We live in Mexico."
Negation in Spanish is beautifully simple. Put the word no directly before the verb. That is all.
⚠️ Common mistakes
There are two ways to ask a question. For a yes/no question, you can simply raise your voice at the end (intonation) or invert the subject and verb. Either way, Spanish uses an upside-down question mark ¿ at the start and a normal one at the end.
Spanish also opens exclamations with an upside-down ¡, as in ¡Qué bien! ("How nice!"). For richer questions, use a question word. Every question word carries a written accent.
| Question word | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| qué | what | ¿Qué estudias? — What do you study? |
| quién / quiénes | who (sing. / plural) | ¿Quién habla? — Who is speaking? |
| dónde | where | ¿Dónde vives? — Where do you live? |
| cuándo | when | ¿Cuándo comen? — When do they eat? |
| cómo | how | ¿Cómo estás? — How are you? |
| cuánto / cuánta / cuántos / cuántas | how much / how many | ¿Cuánto cuesta? — How much is it? |
| por qué | why | ¿Por qué estudias español? — Why do you study Spanish? |
Cuánto changes to match what it counts: cuántos libros ("how many books," masculine plural) but cuánta agua ("how much water," feminine singular).
The paradigms above are the regular, predictable ones. But four of the most common verbs in Spanish break the rules: ser (to be), estar (to be), ir (to go), and tener (to have). You will hear them constantly, and they do not follow the neat endings you just learned. Do not worry about memorizing them today — they each get their own careful lesson next. For now, just recognize the names.
Fill each blank with the correct present-tense form of the verb for the subject given.
Fill each blank with the correct question word (accents count!). The English hint is in parentheses.
Wonderful work. Every verb you meet from here on builds on these patterns, so the more you conjugate out loud, the more automatic it becomes. Mistakes are simply practice in progress — keep speaking, keep experimenting, and these endings will soon feel like second nature.