Spanish 2: The Present Tense

One word, hablamos, tells you who is speaking (we), when (now) and how many people are involved, with no help from any other word. English needs “we speak” for the same job. That is the idea behind Spanish verbs: the ending does the work the pronoun does in English.

It looks like a wall of forms until you notice that the endings repeat. Learn three small tables and you can build the present tense of hundreds of verbs, including ones you have never seen. This piece teaches those tables, the five ways Spanish says “you”, and gives you a trainer that drills the forms and brings back the ones you miss. Irregular verbs wait for the next piece, so everything here is regular.

A verb is a stem plus an ending

The form you find in a dictionary is the infinitive, and it ends in -ar, -er or -ir. That ending names the verb’s family. Take it off and what remains is the stem: habl-, com-, viv-. The present tense is the stem plus an ending that depends on who is acting.

	-ar hablar	-er comer	-ir vivir
yo	hablo	como	vivo
tú	hablas	comes	vives
él, ella, usted	habla	come	vive
nosotros	hablamos	comemos	vivimos
vosotros	habláis	coméis	vivís
ellos, ellas, ustedes	hablan	comen	viven

Look at the table by column and you will see how little there is to learn. The yo form always ends in -o. The -er and -ir families differ only in nosotros and vosotros (comemos, vivimos; coméis, vivís). The rest is a vowel swap: -ar verbs use a in habla, hablas; -er and -ir verbs use e in come, comes.

These are 28 regular verbs the trainer below uses, so you can start building sentences:

• -ar: hablar (speak), comprar (buy), trabajar (work), estudiar (study), caminar (walk), necesitar (need), llamar (call), escuchar (listen to), cocinar (cook), bailar (dance), ayudar (help), viajar (travel), buscar (look for), tomar (take).
• -er: comer (eat), beber (drink), aprender (learn), leer (read), vender (sell), correr (run), creer (believe), responder (answer).
• -ir: vivir (live), escribir (write), abrir (open), subir (go up), recibir (receive), decidir (decide).

Stress is regular too. In every form except nosotros and vosotros the stress sits on the stem: HAblo, HAblas, HAbla, HAblan. In hablamos and habláis it moves to the ending (habla-MOS), which is why vosotros forms carry an accent mark (habláis, coméis, vivís). Remember that detail: the next piece uses it to explain why some verbs change their stem and others do not.

Dropping the pronoun

Because the ending already says who is acting, the subject pronoun is usually dropped: hablo alone means “I speak”, and ¿Vives aquí? needs no tú. You add yo, tú and the rest for three reasons: to contrast (“yo hablo, not you”), to be clear where the form alone is ambiguous (habla could be he, she or you formal), and for emphasis. Beginners over-use the pronoun because English requires it. Try to leave it out for a week.

What the present tense covers

The Spanish present covers “I speak”, “I do speak”, “I am speaking” and often the near future (Mañana trabajo, “tomorrow I work”). English splits these into different forms; Spanish uses one. To make a negative, put no before the verb: No hablo. A question needs only rising intonation and the marks: ¿Hablas inglés?. There is no helper like “do”, so “Do you speak English?” and “You speak English” differ in tone and punctuation, not in words.

A short exchange that uses nothing but what is on this page:

—¿Trabajas aquí?	Do you work here?
—No, estudio aquí. Trabajo en una tienda.	No, I study here. I work in a shop.
—¿Dónde vives?	Where do you live?
—Vivo cerca. ¿Comemos juntos?	I live nearby. Shall we eat together?

Who is “you”?

This depends on where you are and who you are speaking to, and it is the part of Spanish verbs that varies most. Tú is the informal singular almost everywhere. Usted is the formal singular and takes the él form (¿Usted habla inglés?); in parts of Colombia and Costa Rica it is also used with friends and family. Vos replaces tú in Argentina, Uruguay, much of Central America and other regions (voseo), with its own endings: vos hablás, comés, vivís. For several people Latin America says ustedes; Spain says vosotros informally and ustedes formally.

Where	One person, informal	Several people, informal
Mexico, Caribbean	tú	ustedes
Spain	tú	vosotros
Argentina, Uruguay	vos	ustedes
Central America	mostly vos (tú in Panama)	ustedes
Colombia	varies: tú, vos or usted	ustedes

No choice is wrong. If you do not know where your Spanish will be used, learn tú and ustedes first, and recognise vos and vosotros when you meet them. The trainer below leaves both off until you switch them on.

Train the forms: the conjugation trainer

A prompt appears, such as nosotros · hablar · to speak, and you type the form. A wrong or revealed form comes back sooner (after about three questions, and again after about nine), and forms you keep getting right come up less and less often. Tap the accent buttons when your phone keyboard makes accents slow. By default it asks yo, tú, él or ella or usted, nosotros and ellos or ustedes; vosotros and vos are switches. With strict accents off, a form missing its accent mark is accepted with a gentle reminder. This piece uses only the 28 regular verbs.

Common mistakes

• Leaving the infinitive. Yo hablar is what a beginner says; the verb has to change: yo hablo.
• Mixing the families. Comamos is not the present of comer (that is comemos); -ar verbs take a in hablas, habla, and -er/-ir verbs take e.
• Forgetting that the ending already says who. Yo trabajo every time sounds heavy; trabajo is natural.
• Using tú everywhere. With an older stranger, a customer or an official, many speakers expect usted. When unsure, start with usted and let them invite you to use tú.
• Dropping accents on vosotros and vos. Habláis, coméis, vivís, hablás, comés all carry the mark. The strict switch in the trainer checks this.

Your next four days

Ten minutes a day, in this order: review the cards that are due, do the drill, then say two or three sentences aloud.

Day	Trainer	Say aloud
1	10 forms: yo and tú only	Three things you do every day, with yo dropped.
2	10 forms: add él, nosotros, ellos	Three things a family member does.
3	10 forms: all families mixed	Ask a question with each of three different verbs.
4	10 forms: add vos or vosotros if you need them	Say the six forms of vivir without looking.

What sticks

• A verb is a stem plus an ending, and the ending carries the person; the three families differ little.
• The yo form of a regular verb ends in -o; -er and -ir verbs differ only in nosotros and vosotros.
• The pronoun is usually dropped; use it to contrast or to be clear.
• One Spanish present covers “I speak”, “I am speaking” and often the near future; no is the negative, and rising tone makes a question.
• Which “you” depends on region and relationship: tú, usted, vos, vosotros, ustedes. None is wrong.
• Stress sits on the stem except in nosotros and vosotros.