The five tenses that matter
Master these and you can hold a real conversation about almost any topic.
- Present — what's happening now (hablo, como, vivo).
- Preterite — a completed past action (hablé, comí, viví).
- Imperfect — an ongoing or repeated past (hablaba, comía, vivía).
- Future — what will happen (hablaré, comeré, viviré).
- Conditional — what would happen (hablaría, comería, viviría).
Regular -ar, -er, -ir patterns
Take hablar (to speak), comer (to eat), and vivir (to live). The endings repeat for almost every regular verb.
- Yo: hablo, como, vivo
- Tú: hablas, comes, vives
- Él/Ella/Usted: habla, come, vive
- Nosotros: hablamos, comemos, vivimos
- Vosotros (Spain): habláis, coméis, vivís
- Ellos/Ustedes: hablan, comen, viven
The irregular verbs you can't skip
Ser, estar, tener, hacer, ir, decir, poder, ver, querer, dar. Drill these — they appear in almost every sentence.
The shortcut that works
Don't memorize tables — practice in sentences. Read a Spanish paragraph, underline every verb, and identify the tense and subject. Within a few weeks the patterns become automatic.
Use a conjugator to check yourself instantly. Try the ConvertSpanish Verb Conjugator for any verb in any tense.