Present Tense Verb Conjugation (El Presente)

There are three classes of verbs in Spanish that are distinguished by their endings:

First class (-ar) verbs like hablar (to talk/speak)

Second class (-er) verbs like comer (to eat)

Third class (-ir) verbs like vivir (to live)

These ending are changed to correspond with their subject.

Most verbs are regular, however, many high frequency verbs are irregular. We will first talk about the regular verbs and their endings.

Though you’ll see in many textbooks the verbs are divided into the root plus the ending. There is a tripartite system that makes the addition of other tenses easier and will be the way in which I will be conjugating the verbs.

The regular verbs endings for the first class (-ar) verbs like hablar are:

	Subject pronoun	Root	Key vowel	Ending
Infinitive		habl	a	r
1ª PS	Yo	habl	o	#
2ª PS	Tú	habl	a	s
3ª PS	Él Ella Usted	habl habl habl	a a a	# # #
1ª PP	Nosotros (as)	habl	a	mos
3ª PP	Ellos Ellas Ustedes	habl habl habl	a a a	n n n

#= nothing PS = persona singular PP = persona plural

Remember that we are using the Ustedes form for the plural for both Tú and Usted!

The second class of verb endings (-er) verbs like comer are:

	Subject pronoun	Root	Key vowel	Ending
Infinitive		com	e	r
1ª PS	Yo	com	o	#
2ª PS	Tú	com	e	s
3ª PS	Él Ella Usted	com com com	e e e	# # #
1ª PP	Nosotros (as)	com	e	mos
3ª PP	Ellos Ellas Ustedes	com com com	e e e	n n n

The third class of verb endings (-ir) verbs like vivir are:

	Subject pronoun	Root	Key vowel	Ending
Infinitive		viv	i	r
1ª PS	Yo	viv	o	#
2ª PS	Tú	viv	e	s
3ª PS	Él Ella Usted	viv viv viv	e e e	# # #
1ª PP	Nosotros (as)	viv	i	mos
3ª PP	Ellos Ellas Ustedes	viv viv viv	e e e	n n n

A few observations:

The Ending column is the same for all three classes of verbs.

For –ar and –er verbs the Key Vowel is the same as the infinitive key vowel (except for Yo)

The –ir Key vowel column is the same as the –er column except for the infinitive and nosotros forms.

Uses of the Present tense:

The present tense can be translated as the simple present (I drink), present progressive (I am drinking) or near future (I will drink):

Bebo café I drink, I am drinking, I will drink coffee.

Él habla con Jaime. He speak, He is speaking, He will speak with Jaime.

Vives en Dallas. You live, You are living, You will live in Dallas.

Trabajamos mucho. We work, We are working, We will work alot.

The way in which these would be translated would depend upon other context clues.