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3.12: Gramática- Conjugación de verbos en -ar

  • Page ID
    171398
    • Erica Brown, Alejandra Escudero, María Cristina Montoya, & Elizabeth Small
    • SUNY Oneonta via OER SUNY
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    Conjugación de verbos en -ar

    Soon you’ll be able to talk about what you actually do at the university, since you’ll be learning more verbs than just ser and hay.

    In order to make sure that you communicate correctly using verbs, there are some terms you need to know if you don’t know them already. A verb infinitive in English is a phrase that includes “to”: “to speak,” “to write,” “to live,” “to be.” A Spanish infinitive is only one word, and it ends in -ar, or -er, or -ir. When you use verbs in both languages, you will use the form that matches the subject. This is called conjugating a verb.

    The following section will focus on conjugating -ar verbs by working with just a few verbs. After learning the basic patterns, we’ll move on to the full list.

    In Spanish, verb conjugations are particularly important because they often indicate the subject of the verb’s action. If we didn’t know the conjugations, we wouldn’t know who is studying philosophy from the phrase estudio la filosofía (I study philosophy). In this section, we’ll be learning the conjugations for regular verbs that end in -ar.

    When memorizing verb conjugations, it can be helpful to learn short sentences or phrases using the different conjugations, rather than trying to stamp the conjugation table into your memory. Bits of songs, poetry, signs, slogans, or phrases that have personal meaning to you can help lock in the various endings. It can be a frustrating process at first, but before long, conjugation will be so automatic you won’t even notice you’re doing it!

    En contexto

    Juan has written an email to his older brother. Read the email, then answer the questions below. You may not understand every word of the text, but try to understand what you can!

    ¡Hola!
    juan.fernandez@dqx.pe
    ¡Hola!

    Juan,

    ¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás? ¿Cómo es la universidad? ¿Estudias mucho? Estudio poco en el instituto. Muchos de mis amigos estudian juntos en la biblioteca, pero yo no; la biblioteca es muy tranquila. Mi amigo, Miguel, y yo estudiamos en un café, donde hay ruido. Mi amiga Sara estudia en su casa enfrente de la televisión. ¡Necesito estudiar ahora!

    Chao,

    Daniel.

    Button with the word Enviar and an icon of a paper airplane Icon of an underlined letter U icon of paperclip icon of link Icon of smiley face emoji Icon of trash can

    Preguntas de análisis:

    Actividad \(\PageIndex{A}\)

    Text Only

    Preguntas de análisis:

    1. Write down the following forms of the verb “estudiar”:

    Yo: nosotros:
    Tú: vosotros: estudiáis
    él/ella/usted: ellos/ellas/ustedes:

    2. Do you always need a subject before the verb in Spanish?

    3. When two verbs are next to each other, what form is the second verb in? 

    Objetivos

    • Identify the correct conjugations of select verbs ending in -ar

    In Spanish, the conjugation of a regular verb depends on the ending of its infinitive. (The infinitive is the basic form of the verb that you find in the dictionary; for example, English infinitives are always written with to, like the verbs to run or to speak. Click here to read more about infinitives in English.)

    Spanish verbs conjugate depending on the verb’s subject; that is, their ending changes depending on who is doing the action. This occurs in the English verb to be (e.g. I am, you are, he is, etc.), but in Spanish this occurs for all persons in all verbs (click here to learn more about verb conjugation in English).

    Let’s start with the regular verb “hablar” – to speak.

    Hablar

    (yo) hablo (nosotros) hablamos
    (tú) hablas (vosotros) habláis*
    (él / ella / usted) habla (ellos / ellas / ustedes) hablan

    * Note: This second-person plural form (vosotros) is only used in the variety of Spanish used in Spain. In other Spanish dialects the third person plural form (ustedes) is used in both formal and informal plural direct-address situations.

    Ejemplos :

    • ¿Qué idiomas hablas tú? (What languages do you speak?)
    • Yo hablo español y francés. (I speak Spanish and French.)
    • ¿Qué idiomas hablan tus amigos? (What languages do your friends speak?)
    • Ellos hablan inglés y chino. (They speak English and Chinese.)

    Here’s that list of -ar verbs:

      • ayudar (to help)
      • bailar (to dance)
      • buscar (to look for)
      • caminar (to walk)
      • cantar (to sing)
      • cocinar (to cook)
      • comprar (to buy)
      • descansar (to rest)
      • desear (to wish)
      • enseñar (to teach)
      • escuchar (to listen)
      • esquiar (to ski)
      • estudiar (to study)
      • ganar (to win)
      • hablar (to talk)
      • llamar (to call)
      • llegar (to arrive)
      • mandar (to send)
      • mirar (to look at)
      • nadar (to swim)
      • necesitar (to need)
      • practicar (to practice)
      • preguntar (to ask)
      • regresar (to return)
      • tomar (to take)
      • trabajar (to work)
      • usar (to use)
      • viajar (to travel)

    Objetivos

    • Identify the correct conjugations of select verbs ending in -ar

    A Practicar

    Actividad \(\PageIndex{A}\)

     

    Contributors and Attributions


    This page titled 3.12: Gramática- Conjugación de verbos en -ar is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Erica Brown, Alejandra Escudero, María Cristina Montoya, & Elizabeth Small (OER SUNY) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.