Spanish -AR Verbs (present tense)

Spanish –ar verbs, in particular, are an essential part of learning Spanish. -Ar verbs share the same construction, so you can easily link them in your mind. This will make all of the words easier to remember.

In Spanish we conjugate our verbs just like we do in English. But, what does conjugate mean?

Conjugating verbs is when we change the ending (and sometimes the stem!) of a verb based on the subject of the sentence. Let’s take the verb “to be” for example. Watch how “be” changes based on the subject of the sentence in these examples: I am, You are, He is. We do this with every verb we use – unless using it in its infinitive form.

In order to conjugate verbs in Spanish, we need to know which type of verb we are conjugating. To determine the type of verb you are working with, you will simply look at its ending. The ending of a verb will always be the last two letters.

The stem is the remaining beginning part of the verb. There are three types of verbs in Spanish. They are: -AR verbs (ex: caminar, hablar, trabajar), -ER verbs (ex: comer, vender, leer), and -IR verbs (ex: permitir, vivir, recibir).

Once you determine the type of verb you are conjugating, you are ready to conjugate the verb using these three short steps:

STEPS TO CONJUGATING REGULAR PRESENT TENSE VERBS IN SPANISH

1. Chop off your -AR, -ER or -IR ending (viajar, beber, abrir) so that you are left with just the stem.
2. Determine the subject of the sentence (yo, tú, él, etc.).
3. Add your new ending based on the subject of the sentence. (yo viajo, tú bebes, nosotros abrimos)

For step 3, here are the new endings you will add to -AR verbs only (we will talk about -ER and -IR verbs in our upcoming lessons!).

Here is the verb MIRAR (to look at) conjugated in each form. The new endings have been highlighted in red for you.