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No bones about it. The present tense is EASY. Just memorize the endings for the different verbs and a couple of oddball
exceptions and you will be able to talk about any momentary thing that is on your mind. Who needs to plan for the future, dwell
on the past, or delve into abstraction anyway ? There are three verb types in Spanish. They are called -AR, -ER, and -IR verbs. Each of
these refers to the last two letters of the infinitive
form of the verb. Examples: -AR: bailar, to dance; -ER: aprender, to learn;
and -IR: escribir, to write. When you conjugate a verb you take the generic, infinitive form and change the ending to match the person(s)
or thing(s) doing whatever action the verb describes. In Spanish, the last two letters come off and another ending goes on in
their place. Each verb tense has its own set of six endings for each verb type. Don't worry though, there are patterns there and
much of the endings overlap so it is easier to remember them. The present tense verb endings are as follows: That is: Sometimes the vowel in the ending is accented. Here is an example conjugation: Bailar Of course, most of the above statements can be restated without any loss of meaning with no pronoun: Bailo --
I dance; bailas, you dance. In Spanish, the verbs change to reflect the person(s) doing the
action on them and it is OK to leave off the pronouns, especially when context makes the subject clear. -ER and -IR verbs are almost identical, so they are often listed together. The only differences in the present tense are in
Nosotros and Vosotros. For -ER verbs: For -IR verbs: That is: Here is an example conjugation of an -ER verb: Aprender Here's an example conjugation of an -IR verb: Escribir Note that the first "e" turns to "ie" in all of the conjugations except the "nosotros" form. That is a pattern that you will
see repeated. |