When you first start studying Spanish, one of the first things you need to know how to do is how to conjugate Spanish verbs. Since verb conjugation is such an integral part of the language, it’s a topic that is going to take some serious time and dedication to memorizing.
It takes a bit of time because there are many irregular verbs to stack on top of the already-high number of regular verb conjugations.
So today we’re going to take the time to go over every single conjugation for AR verbs. After this article, you’ll know the ins and outs of every kind of AR verb and you’ll be able to master ⅓ of all the verbs in Spanish.
Let’s get started!
Types of Verbs in Spanish
In general, there are three types of verbs in Spanish. Each verb is known by its infinitive ending. You have AR verbs, ER verbs, and IR verbs.
In other words, all verbs in Spanish are defined by the last two letters of their infinitive form. For example, you have:
- Cantar – To sing
- Beber – To drink
- Vivir – To live
Today we are only going to be focusing on AR verbs. We’ll be going over how to conjugate all of these Spanish verbs in all of their forms. This way, by the time we finish, you’ll be able to express yourself using AR verbs, even in complex grammar tenses!
Conjugating in Spanish
Conjugation is a process where the stem of the verb (the habl in habl ar) remains the same, and the final part is changed to the appropriate ending.
In Spanish, a verb’s ending will change based on the grammatical tense, the mood, and the subject pronoun.
The Grammatical Tense
The tense refers to where in the timeline the action is happening. This is for the past, the present, and the future. So a verb in the past will look different than a verb in the present tense.
Within each of these timelines, there may be more than one type in order to express a specific relationship to that time. For example, the imperfect tense is a past tense that is used to express repeated actions or background information. The preterite tense, on the other hand, is a past tense that is used to express a completed action.
Mood
The mood is also known as the verb’s modality, or, in other words, how the verb is functioning in a sentence.
In Spanish, you have the indicative mood, the subjunctive mood, and the imperative mood. The indicative expresses a fact, the subjunctive expresses doubt or emotion, and the imperative gives a command.
We won’t go into too much detail right now, but for today, just remember that the mood is not the same as the tense.
The Subject Pronoun
Depending on the subject of the sentence, the verb ending will change in Spanish. The subject pronouns are things like, “I, You, He, We, They”, etc. In English, we sometimes refer to them as personal pronouns.
In Spanish, each subject pronoun helps tell us the appropriate endings for the verb, based on the tense and mood.
Conjugating AR Verbs in Spanish
So it’s important to keep all of that in mind as we go forward! This way, as we look at each conjugation chart for the different tenses and moods, you’ll understand why there are so many and why it’s so important to memorize everything.
We’ll be starting off with an easy one – the simple present tense.
Present Tense (Present Indicative)
The simple present tense is also known as the present indicative. This is the most basic verb tense for AR verbs. Let’s look at the following chart on the present tense endings:
| Subject | Verb Hablar (To speak) |
| Yo | Hablo |
| Tú | Hablas |
| Él / Ella / Usted | Habla |
| Vos | Hablás |
| Nosotros | Hablamos |
| Vosotros | Habláis |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | Hablan |
As you can see, the verb stem never changes for regular ar verbs. In order to conjugate these verbs, you remove the infinitive endings (the AR), then you add the new present tense endings based on the subject pronoun.
For example, you can get:
- Ella canta mucho – She sings a lot
- Yo camino por la mañana – I walk in the morning
Luckily, these are pretty simple. However, it’s important to be aware that there are some irregular verbs for the simple present tense. These irregular verbs must be memorized, unfortunately. A few examples of some common irregular verbs in the present tense are:
- Estar
- Pensar (e – ie)
- Dar
- Jugar (u – ue)
- Contar (o – ue)
So for Pensar, the E changes to an IE with every subject pronoun except for the vos form, nosotros form, and the vosotros form.
- Yo pienso
- Tú piensas
- Él / Ella piensa
- Vos pensás
- Nosotros pensamos
- Vosotros pensáis
- Ellos piensan
Did you know…?
Vos is typically only used in parts of South America and Vosotros is typically only used in parts of Spain.
For verbs like Jugar, the same thing happens, but from U to UE. But for verbs like Estar and Dar, they are completely irregular and you’ll have to memorize them separately. In Spanish grammar, the present tense is pretty simple, but the language has some irregulars to look out for.
Imperfect Tense
The imperfect tense is for past events that habitually happened or to describe the past. Here are the conjugations for regular AR verbs in the imperfect:
| Subject | Verb Hablar (To speak) |
| Yo | Hablaba |
| Tú | Hablabas |
| Él / Ella / Usted | Hablaba |
| Vos | Hablabas |
| Nosotros | Hablábamos |
| Vosotros | Hablabais |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | Hablaban |
The best part about this grammar tense, besides the fact that it is the easiest past tense to memorize, is that there are no irregular AR verbs. So enjoy this while you can!
Preterite Tense
The preterite, on the other hand, is certainly not as regular. But here is here how you conjugate the regular verbs in the preterite:
| Subject | Verb Hablar (To speak) |
| Yo | Hablé |
| Tú | Hablaste |
| Él / Ella / Usted | Habló |
| Vos | Hablaste |
| Nosotros | Hablamos |
| Vosotros | Hablasteis |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | Hablaron |
The first thing you should pay attention to in this verb tense is the accent marks. Regular verbs in the preterite tense have accent marks on the Yo form and the Él / Ella / Usted form.
Some of the most important verbs in the preterite are actually irregular. The following common verbs in Spanish are irregular in the preterite tense:
- Andar
- Estar
- Dar
Andar and Estar are conjugated as:
- Yo Anduve,
- Tú Anduviste,
- Él Anduvo,
- Vos Anduviste,
- Nosotros Anduvimos,
- Vosotros Anduvisteis,
- Ellos Anduvieron.
Dar is conjugated as:
- Yo Di,
- Tú Diste,
- Él Dio,
- Vos Diste,
- Nosotros Dimos,
- Vosotros Disteis,
- Ellos Dieron
Future Tense
The future is a great tense to learn after the past tense because it’s much easier compared to the last two. So you can think of it as a nice breath of fresh air.
| Subject | Verb Hablar (To speak) |
| Yo | Hablaré |
| Tú | Hablarás |
| Él / Ella / Usted | Hablará |
| Vos | Hablarás |
| Nosotros | Hablaremos |
| Vosotros | Hablaréis |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | Hablarán |
As you can see, the future tense isn’t super difficult. And there’s even more good news – all AR verbs are regular verbs in the future!
So there you have it. It wasn’t going to be difficult forever!
Conditional
The conditional tense is used in the same way that we say “would” to make hypothetical situations. Here is how you make it with an AR verb:
| Subject | Verb Hablar (To speak) |
| Yo | Hablaría |
| Tú | Hablarías |
| Él / Ella / Usted | Hablaría |
| Vos | Hablarías |
| Nosotros | Hablaríamos |
| Vosotros | Hablaríais |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | Hablarían |
Once again, there are verbs ending in AR that are irregular in the conditional, either!
Subjunctive Present Tense
Now we’re moving on to the next mood, the subjunctive. These verbs express doubt, emotions, or some other specific idea. First, we’ll look at the subjunctive mood in the simple present. For a regular verb, it looks like this:
| Subject | Verb Hablar (To speak) |
| Yo | Hable |
| Tú | Hables |
| Él / Ella / Usted | Hable |
| Vos | Hablés / Hables |
| Nosotros | Hablemos |
| Vosotros | Habléis |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | Hablen |
A helpful trick for many people is that the subjunctive is almost like using the ER verb endings for an AR verb. It’s not 100% accurate, but it’s a great memory tool to help you out a little bit.
Some examples of irregular subjunctive verbs are:
- Sacar – Saque
- Empezar – Empiece
- Dar – Dé
- Same verbs from the present indicative
Here, the first three sets are verbs that have a change in their spelling to match their pronunciation. Then, all the verbs that we mentioned in the present indicative will have the same stem-changing action in the subjunctive.
Past Subjunctive
The good news is that you only need to remember one type of past subjunctive for AR verbs. However, you have two choices that you’ll see here:
| Subject | Verb Hablar (To speak) |
| Yo | Hablara / Hablase |
| Tú | Hablaras / Hablases |
| Él / Ella / Usted | Hablara / Hablase |
| Vos | Hablaras / Hablases |
| Nosotros | Hablaramos / Hablásemos |
| Vosotros | Hablarais / Hablaseis |
| Ellos / Ellas / Ustedes | Hablaran / Hablasen |
Whether you go for the -ara or the -ase ending is completely up to you! Both exist in Spanish and they mean exactly the same thing. One may be more common than the other in different regions, but there’s no difference in meaning.
All of the verbs that are irregular in the indicative preterite tense are also irregular in this tense.
Gerund + Participle
Finally, the gerund and the participle are important to know for compound forms. We won’t go over everything you need to know about these in detail, but in general, the gerund is the equivalent of the -ing ending in English.
The participle is the English version of Broken, Eaten, Walked, etc.
Here are the gerund and participle endings. There are also no irregular AR verbs in these tenses.
- Gerund = Hablando
- Participio = Hablado
ARen’t You Glad You’re Finished?
You’re all done! You are now able to conjugate ⅓ of all Spanish verbs, in (almost) every single verb conjugation!
That’s a huge amount of work, so you should be proud of yourself. Before practicing the ER and IR verbs, you should go ahead and sign up for a free private class or a 7-day free trial of our group classes so you can put what you just learned to the test.
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