Verbos regulares (-ar) en el presente, modo indicativo (Regular Verbs in the Present Tense, Indicative Mood)

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Mood and tense are grammatical categories relating to verbs and they exist both in Spanish and English. Mood refers to a way of showing how the speaker feels or presents facts about what they are communicating. Tenses indicate when an action happens, whether it takes place in the past, present, or future. We will now be introducing how verbs are classified in Spanish as well as look at some regular verbs in the present tense of the indicative mood. The indicative mood is used to express facts, descriptions, and statements that are considered certain or real. It is the most common mood in Spanish and English, used for talking about things that actually happen, have happened, or will happen.

We start off with a verb in its infinitive form, meaning that it is the verb in its base, unconjugated form. We can say it is infinitive because it reflects the meaning of the verb, but it doesn’t have an ending that expresses who is performing the action and when yet.

Infinitive verbs in Spanish fall into three main groups: -ar, -er, and -ir

Note: As you’ve seen previously in the chapter, there are verbs that do not always follow a particular or regular pattern of conjugation. Those are called irregular verbs, but for now let’s take a look at some regular verbs. We’ll begin with -ar verbs.

In order to conjugate a regular -ar verb:

1. Start out with the infinitive form

• Hablar (to talk/to speak)

2. Remove the “ar” ending

• Habl-

3. Add the correct ending depending on the subject (the agent performing the action)

Regular -ar Verb Endings

Hablar (to talk) 💬

Here are some examples of the verb in context:

• La profesora habla español. 👩🏼‍🏫💬

• The professor speaks Spanish.

• Los estudiantes hablan de política. 🧑🏽‍🎓👩🏾‍🎓💬

• The students talk about politics.

• ¿Hablas español? 💬

• Do you speak Spanish?

• ¿Ustedes hablan inglés? 💬

• Do you (all) speak English?

More Regular -ar Verbs

• agarrar

• to grab

• ayudar 🆘

• to help

• bailar 💃

• to dance

• caminar 🚶

• to walk

• cantar 🎤

• to sing

• cenar 🍽️

• to have dinner

• cocinar 🧑‍🍳

• to cook 

• comprar  💳

• to buy 

• contestar 🟰

• to answer 

• desayunar 🥞

• to have breakfast 

• entrar 🚪

• to enter 

• escuchar 👂

• to listen 

• esperar

• to wait 🫸 / to hope 🙏

• estudiar 📚

• to study 

• explicar

• to explain

• llegar 🛬

• to arrive 

• limpiar 🧹

• to clean 

• llamar 📲

• to call 

• llevar

• to carry / to wear

• mirar 👀

• to look at / to watch 

• nadar 🏊

• to swim 

• necesitar 🙏

• to need 

• pagar 💲

• to pay

• practicar 🏂

• to practice 

• preguntar ❓

• to ask a question 

• tomar

• to take 🫴 / to drink 🥤

• tocar

• to touch 🖐️ / to play (an instrument) 🎸

• trabajar 👷🏼

• to work 

• viajar 🧳

• to travel 

• visitar

• to visit

Here are some examples of some -ar verbs in context:

• Trabajo 🧑🏽‍💼en la biblioteca 📚de la universidad.

• I work at the university library.

• ¿Dónde 📍practicas?

• Where do you practice?

• Ella 👩🏽‍🎤toca la guitarra.🎸

• She plays the guitar.

Notice that in the first two sentences the subject pronouns (yo and tú) are omitted. Remember, as you already saw with ser, in Spanish it is not mandatory to always use the subject pronoun, as it is implied in the verb ending. If the subject is not clear, however, you must include it (or the pronoun) in the sentence. For example, if we had not added the subject pronoun ella in the third example, and had  instead said “Toca la guitarra”, then we wouldn’t know if the verb is referring to an él, ella, elle or usted. Likewise, when you are introducing information for the first time or want to make sure that the specific subject you are referring to is understood, you must include the subject or subject pronoun along with the conjugated verb in the sentence.

Note on the verb necesitar: While the verb necesitar is a regular verb, meaning “to need”, at times one might need something or need to perform an action. When in need of something you just use the verb, conjugated, followed by a noun, for example: Yo necesito café ☕(I need coffee). In the case of an action, we leave the action verb in the infinitive form (without conjugating it). For example, let’s say that you need to study for an upcoming quiz… You would say – Yo necesito estudiar para la prueba 📝. (I need to study for the quiz.)

¡Importante! There is a very common -ar ending verb in Spanish that you will come across often: gustar. It means “to like” in English, however, even though it’s an -ar ending verb, it does not follow the structure that you have seen above. For example, for the first person singular, you say me gusta 👍(I like), not yo gusto* 👎, and therefore, you say me gusta la música 😍(I like music), and not yo gusto la música.🚫

Keep this in mind for now! You will learn more about gustar and similar verbs that follow this structure later on.

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