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¡Hola! Welcome to Spanish! Today we will learn how to change verbs to talk about who is doing an action.
In Spanish, verbs change their endings based on who does the action. This is called conjugation. Regular verbs that end in -ar all follow the same simple pattern.
To conjugate a verb like hablar (to speak) — pronounced ah-BLAHR — we first chop off the -ar ending. This leaves us with the stem, habl-.
Next, we add a new ending to the stem based on the subject. For example, if you want to say 'I speak', you add -o to the stem to get yo hablo (I speak).
We do the same for other people. Use -as for tú (you, informal), -a for él/ella (he/she), and -an for ellos/ellas (they). Now we can build complete sentences!
Conjugate the verb cantar (to sing) — pronounced kahn-TAHR — for the subject 'ellos' (they) to say 'They sing' in Spanish.
- Identify the infinitive verb, which is cantar (to sing). This is the starting point before any changes.
- Remove the -ar ending from the verb cantar. This leaves us with the stem, which is cant-.
- Identify the subject pronoun. Here, the subject is ellos (they).
- Look up the correct ending for ellos. For regular -ar verbs, the ending for ellos is -an.
- Attach the ending -an to our stem cant-. This gives us cantan.
- Combine the subject and verb to get the final sentence: Ellos cantan (They sing).
