Verbs

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Last Updated: Sunday, 11 August 2024 18:00

Published: Wednesday, 27 December 2023 08:11

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Verbs:

Verbs can be in different forms, different tenses, different moods. They can be main verb or auxillary verb, be in active voice or passive voice, etc. Thus it's hard to group verbs in just one tree branching out, as tenses, forms, voice, etc overlap with each other. Usually we know verbs by their tenses, i.e whether it's in past, present or future. However, keep in mind that tenses are just one classification style of verbs, there are other classifications too.

Link: https://espanol.lingolia.com/en/grammar/verbs

Verb forms:

English: In English, there are only 5 forms of verb as shown below. Forms means different transformation of the verb. For ex: run can have diff forms as run, ran, running, runs, etc. These are all different forms. Of these 5 forms, first 3 forms are most commonly learnt when learning => These are past/present/past_participle forms of verb.

Link: https://www.careerpower.in/verb-forms.html

1. Present (Root) form of a verb (V1) => This is the base form of verb w/o modification. i.e I run. Here verb "run" is base form of verb.
2. Simple Past form of a verb (V2) => This denotes action done in past, i.e I walked. These are formed by adding -ed/-d to end of base verb for regular verbs. For irregular verbs, no simple rules (i.e I ran)
3. Past Participle form of a verb (V3) => This form of verb is similar to simple past form (V2), but always come with an auxiliary verb. Ex: "He played" vs "He had played". "He played" is simple past or V2 form, but "He had played" is V3 form. It needed auxillary verb "had". Past participle is refered as "past" since the verb form is of "simple past" with -ed/-d added. Sometimes, it's with -n added too (i.e took vs taken). However it doesn't mean event had already occurred. It can be used in past, present or future tense. Ex: He had been called, he is being called, he will be called => all 3 are V3 form and verb is in past form, but with the correct auxillary verb, it can represent all 3 tenses.
4. Present Participle form of verb (V4) => This form is created by adding -ing to the base form. It’s used in the past, present, and future progressive verb tenses. Ex: He was running, he is running, he will be running => all 3 are V4 form, but in 3 diff tenses.
5. Third -person singular Present form (V5) => This is the V1 verb, but instead this is used for 3rd person, i.e He, she, it, etc. It is denoted by addition of -s or-es to the base form, i.e he plays badminton. Here plays is V5 form.

Spanish: All Verbs in Spanish are of 2 forms - Personal and Impersonal. We choose which form to use depending on how the verb is to be used with the subject. We don't have 5 forms as in English. This will become clear later with examples.

Link: https://espanol.lingolia.com/en/grammar/verbs

• Personal form: These are verbs which change according to nouns/pronouns attached with the verb (i.e I run). They follow the same 3x2 table as shown for pronouns in previous section -i.e whether nouns/pronouns are 1st, 2nd , 3rd person (nouns are treated as 3rd person) and whether they are singular/plural. (Same as 3x2 pronoun table shown). So, we have a 3x2 table with 6 versions of these verbs. These are called personal form as verb changes based on person and number. In English, I eat and you eat, both use same verb "eat", but in Spanish, "eat" changes based on "I eat" vs "you eat". In English, we sometimes do that with specific verbs => an ex is verb "run", as in "I run" vs "he runs". In Spanish, it happens with almost all the verbs. This is called Conjugation, where verbs change their endings to reflect the subject of the sentence in person and number. Since the verb form indirectly specifies the subject pronoun, we omit the pronoun all together for 1st and 2nd person (i.e instead of saying "I eat banana" or "yo como plátano" we just say "eat banana" or "como plátano" as verb "cpmo" (from base word comer)  implies "I eat"). We'll see these in ex below.
  • ex: I eat => como (base verb is comer, but is transformed based on pronoun "I")
• Impersonal form: These are verbs which don't change based on noun/pronoun attached to the verb. So, they are called impersonal, as they don't depend on person. No complicated 3x2 table to memorize, as all forms are same. There are 3 forms of these verbs:
  
  1. Infinitive form: Every verb can be put in Infinitve form, where the verb remains in it's base form (i.e walk). This is same as V1 form in English, and is also the  simple present tense of the verb. The word "to" added in front of the verb doesn't change the base form of verb. So, "to walk" is also an infinitve form of verb. In Spanish, infinitive form of verb is with the word "to" in front of it. All verb infinitives end in -ar, -er or -ir.. These are base verbs, and all verbs are formed from one of these base verbs.The base word implies "to do something". ex: hablar which is an ar verb means "to speak". If we just say speak, then it's not hablar, but is transformed based on the noun doing the verb. So, this verb is converted to personal form that we read above.
     
     • ex: cantar => to sing
  2. Gerund form: The gerund of Spanish verbs is equivalent to the English -ing form. Explained under "gerund" section.
     
     • ex: cantar (to sing) => I am singing => estoy cantando
  3. Participle form: The participle is equivalent to the English past participle (V3 or third form of the verb). Explained under "participle" section.
     
     • ex: cantar (to sing) => I have sung => he cantado (NOTE: gerund form was cantando, while here it's cantado

NOTE:

• Gender: Verbs do NOT have a gender. So, no matter the gender of noun, verb remains the same. But verbs change according to forms discussed above. For personal forms, it's 2X3 table. Each verb can exist in various tenses, and each tense has it's own 3x2 table. We'll discuss tenses below.
• Endings: Verbs in Spanish always end in -ar, -er and -ir. Whenever you see a Spanish word with these endings, remember they will be verbs. In English, we can't look at a word, and say it's a verb (i.e "speak" - you can never figure out it's a verb, based on it's spelling, but in spanish, it's "hablar", and as soon as you see -ar, you know it's a verb).
• Consecutive verbs: When we have 2 verbs back to back, how do we conjugate them. Do we conjugate both of them based on the subject or just one. Well, conjugating both verbs will sound weird and also unnecessary since conjugation of 1 verb will be enough to indicate who the subject is. We usually conjugate the 1st verb, and have the 2nd verb in infinitive or participle form. We saw in "Participle form" above that "I have sung", "have" is the one that's modified as per 3x2 table.

Verb Moods and Tenses:

In Spanish, verbs also have moods - Moods help specify the speaker’s intention. In Spanish, there are three verb moods: With each mood, we have certain tenses. Tenses are same as in English - past, present, past progressive, future tense, etc. There are 18 Spanish verb tenses. Link: https://blog.rosettastone.com/your-complete-guide-to-all-18-spanish-verb-tenses-with-examples/

Out of these 18 tenses,10 tenses go only with indicative, 6 go only with Subjunctive and 2 only with Imperative. Why do we talk about moods when talking about tenses? => Because, the verb conjugate differently depending on the mood. So, the same present tense will conjugate differently in 1 mood than the other mood. So, basically we have 18 conjugate tables that we have to learn for each verb. So, 6 entries for each conjugate table implies about 100 conjugations you have to remember for each verb. With 1000's of verbs, that's 100K of verb conjugations !! Fortunately, we can get away by learning just 3 conjugate tables for simple past, present and future.

We'll see the Moods and allowable tenses in each mood:

1. Indicative mood (el indicativo): It is used for objective statements, events, actions and facts. It is the default mood and  expresses real information that is known or certain. Normal sentences are usually formed in the indicative mood. It's how we normally talk in English (Indicative mood). It is present in all tenses as present, past and future. There are not just 3, but 10 tenses that go with indicative mode:
   1. Present tense (Presente): This is simple present tense just like Present tense in English (V1 form in English)
      
      1. ex: He cleans the Kitchen => limpia la cocina. limpiar means "to clean". 3rd person form is limpia.
   2. Past tense (Preterit or Pretérito/Indefinido): This is the simple past tense (V2 form in English).
      1. They bought a new car => Compraron un coche nuevo.
   3. Future (Futuro Simple): This is the future tense in English as "I will do", etc.
      
      1.  I will talk to my father tonight.=> Hablaré con mi padre esta noche.
   4. Perfect form (Perfecto): Perfect tenses are participle form, i.e I had studied. All perfect tenses use the auxiliary verb haber (ex: had) along with a past participle main verb (studied). We saw the Participle form above, which was the V3 form in English. Along with past participle conjugate, we need "haber" verb conjugate to form sentences like "I have eaten", etc. The past participle of main verb (eaten) is formed by removing the ending of the infinitive and adding -ado for -AR verbs or -ido for -ER and -IR verbs (this was already explained above). The perfect tense of auxillary verb (have) is added to this to form the perfect form. Spanish translation of "have" is haber. Haber comes in all 3 perfect tenses as present, past and future, just as in English => I have, I had, I will have, are all possible by having the 3 tenses for haber. The haber table for all 3 tenses is in Verbs - ar,er,ir section. The main verb remains the same. We show the 3 Perfect forms => Present, Past and Future:
      
      1. Present Perfect (Presente Perfecto): He has eaten
      2. Past Perfect (Preterito Perfecto): He had eaten. One other form of this exists as shown below.
         
         1. Preterite Perfect (Preterito anterior): This tense is mostly used in formal speech or in literature, so no need to learn this. It describes an action in the past that happened immediately before another action in the past. ex: After we had eaten, he served dessert.
      3. Future Perfect (Futuro Perfecto): He will have studied.
   5. Past Imperfect (Preterito Imperfecto): You use this tense to talk about past actions generally, without a specific duration. Also commonly referred as "Imperfect tense" (instead of "past imperfect tense") as past is already implied. Ex: He used to play tennis. See in Past Imperfect section.
   6. Conditional (condicional simple): This is used to talk about hypothetical situations and make requests. Ex: We would take out the trash for you.
      1. Conditional Perfect (condicional perfecto): There is another form of conditional mood. It’s used to talk about actions that would have happened, but didn’t due to another event. You can also use it to talk about actions that probably happened or were likely true. Ex: He would have read the book, but his friends came. Not important to learn these.
2. Subjunctive mood (el subjuntivo): It is used for expressing emotions, desires, and possibilities. It expresses hypothetical, vague or unverified information. It s called subjunctive as it indicates subjectivity of the fact. It is often used in subordinate clauses that follow a negative statement. Ex: I wish that it would rain today. One way to memorize what the subjunctive covers is to use the acronym WEIRDO:
   1. WEIRDO:
      
      1. Wishes
      2. Emotions
      3. Impersonal expressions
      4. Recommendations
      5. Doubts/denials
      6. Ojalá (“Hopefully/I wish”)
   2. Present (Presente de subjuntivo): ex: Lamento que tengan que irse. = I’m sorry that they have to leave.
      
   3. Imperfect (Imperfecto de subjuntivo): This s past tense of subjunctive mood. used to talk about feelings related to past events, as well as hypothetical situations. ex: I wanted you to come to my party.
      
   4. Future (Futuro de subjuntivo): This is rarely found in modern Spanish, and its uses are largely covered by the present subjunctive. ex: Wherever you go, do what you see.
      
   5. Perfect form (Perfecto): Similar to perfect tense in Indicative form, we have it here too. they use auxillary verb "haber" along with main verb. All 3 tenses of present, past and future are present here too.
      
      1. Present Perfect: It is similar to the present subjunctive, except that it covers past actions that are connected to the present, as well as actions that will have happened at a certain point in the future.
         • ex: My teacher doubts that I have read the book.
      2. Past Perfect: It to describe hypothetical situations in the past, conditional situations in the past, and past actions that preceded other actions.
         • ex: If I had known, I would have come.
      3. Future Perfect: Similar to Future Subjunctive, this form is rarely used.
         
         • ex: Priority will be given to those matters that fall under the emergency procedures provision.
3. Imperative (imperativo): Similar to perfect tense in Indicative form. It is used for giving commands, making requests, giving advice, etc. addressed to one or more people directly. These verbs don't conjugate or change the same way as is done for personal verbs. The 3x2 table is still there, but it it has it's own table for -ar, -er and -ir verbs. We'll look at those in verbs - ar, er, ir section. They come in 2 forms:
   
   1. Affirmative Imperative: When we give a cmd to do something in affirmative. ex: Eat your food.
   2. Negative Imperative: When we give a cmd NOT to do something. ex: Do NOT go there.

Most common verbs:

There are 300 most common verbs that will cover 99% of verbs ever used in conversations. Some of them are irregular (see below), but knowing conjugation for even some of them will enhance your Spanish a lot.

Link to 100 most used verbs with Pics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhIQ2BfrxTM

Verb Conjugation:

We are going to look thru various spanish verbs in next few sub sections. Verbs in Spanish come in only 3 different endings => -ar, -er and -ir.

ex: pintar => to paint

There are few exception verbs which don't end in -ar, -er or -ir:

• busara => to search. Other word basura means Trash, garbage (i.e the physical garbage that we pick up).

Some words end in -ar, -er or -ir, but are not Verbs:

• amanecer => sunrise. atardecer => sunset. (both end in -er)

Verbs conjugate (i.e transform) based on the mood, tense, etc. There's a 3x2 table that helps us in making this transformation. This transformation table id different for different tenses, moods, etc.

Irregular verbs: These verbs are irregular, meaning they don't follow our usual 3x2 transformation table. These are discussed under their own section, as there are too many here. We need to learn some of the most commonly used irregular verbs. A lot of regular verbs turn out to be irregular in some conjugation table. But this will come with practice.