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¡Hola! Ready to speak Spanish? Today we will learn how to change action words to talk about different people!
In Spanish, action words are called verbs. Verbs that end in the letters -ar are the largest group of verbs, like hablar (to speak) — ah-BLAR. To use them, we first chop off the -ar ending to find the stem.
Once you have the stem, you add a new ending. The ending changes depending on who is doing the action. For example, to say 'I speak', we add '-o' to the stem 'habl-' to get 'hablo' (I speak).
Let us compare 'I' and 'you' forms. For 'tú' (you, informal), we add '-as' to get 'hablas' (you speak). See how the ending acts like a secret code telling us who is talking!
Let us change the verb cantar (to sing) — kahn-TAR to say "I sing" in Spanish.
- Find the verb: cantar (to sing).
- Chop off the last two letters, which are -ar. This leaves you with the stem: cant-.
- Identify the subject. Here, the subject is "I", which is yo in Spanish.
- Look up the ending for "I". The ending for "yo" is -o.
- Attach the ending to your stem: cant + o = canto.
- Put it together! Yo canto (I sing) is your final correct answer.
