Learning how to speak Spanish is not all rainbows and fairytales.

There are fundamental rules and foundations that you must learn like Spanish verb conjugations. But hold up, you may already be thinking: what are conjugations?
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What Are Verb Conjugations?
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Without boring you, verb conjugations exist in just about any language. It's a 'formulaic' way to change verbs based on the following factors:

• Person
• Tense
• Mood
• Gender
• Voice
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Let's go over the basics of what you'll need to know for the most common types of Spanish verb conjugations, persons and tenses.

For person, there are six different conjugations available including:

• I am (first person singular)
• You are (second person singular)
• He/she/it is (third person singular)
• We are (first person plural)
• You are (second person plural)
• They are (third person plural)
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And when it comes to tenses, you'll encounter the following possible options:

• Simple present (eat)
• Simple past (ate)
• Simple future (will eat)
• Present continuous (am eating)
• Past continuous (was eating)
• Futurer continuous (will be eating)
• Present perfect (have eaten)
• Past perfect (had eaten)
• Future perfect (will have eaten)
• Present perfect continuous (have been eating)
• Past perfect continuous (had been eating)
• Future perfect continuous (will have been eating)
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How to Learn Spanish Verb Conjugations

Now that we've gone over the basics of what you need to know about conjugations, we'll share some best learning tips. Besides, in the information-age we live in, lack of information is rarely the issue. It's about how to effectively retain and use the information we learn.

‍Tip #1: Use Spanish verb conjugation tools: Our favorite tool to use is SpanishDict. While it was originally built as a Spanish dictionary, their conjugation tool is just as effective. It offers you a visual table of all the possible conjugations available for your target word, including examples in English on how to use it.
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Tip #2: Focus only on what you'll actually use: The most common mistake we see in new language learners, especially the ambitious ones, is the overextend their learning. Meaning, they try to learn everything at once. Instead, you should focus on only the core conjugations that you will likely use in everyday conversations. Feel free to highlight these and that way, you can come back to it anytime.

‍Tip #3: Work with a professional Spanish tutor (or native speaker) to get feedback: Learning Spanish on your own can be done, but it'll take significantly longer. We empathize the logic of wanting to do it on your own, whether it's to save money or time.
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Most Common Conjugations in Spanish

In Spanish, you'll most commonly encounter regular verbs like -ar, -ir, and -er. We'll give you a breakdown of how to conjugate these verb endings and share some irregular verbs you can use.

You'll want to focus on the last two letters of these words that end in -ar, -ir, and -er, and replace them with the conjugated endings depending on which person you're referring to. To keep it simple, we're going to focus on teaching you just the present tenses for now.
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Regular Verbs

1) -AR endings

‍Example: Tomar - To take

• yo tomo
• tu tomas
• él/ella/usted toma
• nosotros tomamos
• vosotros tomáis
• ellos/ella/ustedes toman
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2) -ER endings

‍Example: Beber - To drink

• yo bebo
• tu bebes
• él/ella/usted bebe
• nosotros bebemos
• vosotros bebéis
• ellos/ella/ustedes beben
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3) -IR endings

‍Example: Partir - To separate/part

• yo parto
• tu partes
• él/ella/usted parte
• nosotros partimos
• vosotros partis
• ellos/ella/ustedes parten
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Not too bad right? Keep these in mind, and treat it as a template to help you with future regular verbs that you'll encounter in Spanish. Another tip to remember is that for 'yo', all of these endings will end in 'o' (ex. yo parto). The other persons differ but follow a relatively similar pattern that's easy to remember.
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Irregular verbs

Now we'll go over some irregular verbs in Spanish that don't fit the same rules. This is always the trickiest part because you have to remember these words separately, knowing that they have different conjugations. I mean, why couldn't they have just used the same rule for all, right?

‍1) Ser (To be - essence)

‍This irregular verb is used to describe who one is, such as what nationality someone is or how tall you are. You'll notice that none of these conjugated endings follow the same format as others, so it's important to remember this separately.

• yo soy
• tú eres
• él/ella/Ud es
• nosotros somos
• vosotros sois
• ellos/ellas/Uds son
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2) Estar (To be - state)

‍Estar is usually referring to a location or how one is feeling. If you're telling a friend that you've arrived at your arranged location, you can say 'estoy aqui'. Another tip is that for all the irregular verbs we'll mention moving forward, you just have to drop the 's' from 'tú' to get the conjugation for él/ella/Ud.

• yo estoy
• tú estás
• él/ella/Ud está
• nosotros estamos
• vosotros estáis
• ellos/ellas/Uds están
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3) Haber - To have

‍Another common irregular verb you'll use is haber. It's an auxillary verb, and you shouldn't mistaken this for tener which we'll talk about next. In English for example, when someone asks you whether you've watched 'Avengers' in theatres, you can say 'I have' or 'I haven't'.

• yo he
• tú has
• él/ella/Ud ha
• nosotros hemos
• vosotros habéis
• ellos/ellas/Uds han
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4) Tener - To have

‍Unlike haber, tener is used when you're describing something that you possess, like a physical object.

• yo tengo
• tú tienes
• él/ella/Ud tiene
• nosotros tenemos
• vosotros tenéis
• ellos/ellas/Uds tienen
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5) Hacer - To do/make

‍You'll find yourself asking the question 'Que haces?' a lot to friends which means 'What are you doing?' Hacer can also mean that someone is making something, so remember the double meaning for future encounters.

• yo hago
• tú haces
• él/ella/Ud hace
• nosotros hacemos
• vosotros hacéis
• ellos/ellas/Uds hacen
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6) Ir - To go

‍Another confusing irregular verb (only at first) is 'ir' because its conjugations look nothing like the verb itself. Luckily, once you know how to conjugate one, you'll realize that they all start with the letter 'v'.

• yo voy
• tú vas
• él/ella/Ud va
• nosotros vamos
• vosotros vais
• ellos/ellas/Uds van
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7) Decir - To say

‍Ever had someone say 'que dices?' or 'dime' when they couldn't quite hear what you were trying to say? Now you know why. Pay close attention to this irregular verb because it switches between using 'di' and 'de' as the first two letters.

• yo digo
• tú dices
• él/ella/Ud dice
• nosotros decimos
• vosotros decís
• ellos/ellas/Uds dicen
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8) Ver - To see/watch

‍We'll finish off our list of most common irregular Spanish verbs with a relatively easy one. Ver means 'to see/watch' and you can use it to ask your friend whether they've seen the latest Game of Thrones to confirming the next time you'll see each other.

• yo veo
• tú ves
• él/ella/Ud ve
• nosotros vemos
• vosotros veis
• ellos/ellas/Uds ven

If you prefer watching a video to help you remember better, we chose this overview video for you.
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Learn Past and Future Tenses

Hopefully you weren't overwhelmed by learning the Spanish present tenses. It's the most commonly used tense, but it's just as important to learn the preterite (past tense) and future tenses. We'll go over the conjugations for the regular verbs we used above.
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El Pretérito (The Preterite)

When you're trying to describe something that one has done in the past, you'll use the preterite verb conjugations to do so.

‍1) -AR endings

‍Example: Tomar - To take

• yo tomé
• tu tomaste
• él/ella/usted tomó
• nosotros tomamos
• vosotros tomasteis
• ellos/ella/ustedes tomaron
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2) -ER endings

‍Example: Beber - To drink

• yo bebí
• tu bebiste
• él/ella/usted bebió
• nosotros bebimos
• vosotros bebisteis
• ellos/ella/ustedes bebieron
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3) -IR endings

‍Example: Partir - To separate/part

• yo partí
• tu partiste
• él/ella/usted partió
• nosotros partimos
• vosotros partisteis
• ellos/ella/ustedes partieron
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El Futuro (The Future)

Lastly, when saying something in future sense, you'll get a bit of a break. Luckily, all the endings for future tenses are same whether it's -ar, -er-, or -ir. Let's take a look below.

‍1) -AR endings

‍Example: Tomar - To take

• yo tomaré
• tu tomarás
• él/ella/usted tomará
• nosotros tomaremos
• vosotros tomaréis
• ellos/ella/ustedes tomarán

2) -ER endings

‍Example: Beber - To drink

• yo beberé
• tu beberás
• él/ella/usted beberás
• nosotros beberemos
• vosotros beberéis
• ellos/ella/ustedes beberán
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3) -IR endings

‍Example: Partir - To separate/part

• yo partiré
• tu partirás
• él/ella/usted partirá
• nosotros partiremos
• vosotros partiréis
• ellos/ella/ustedes partirán
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That's pretty much it!

A lot to remember, we know. We recommend you saving this article to revisit it in the near future. While this is not the end all of using Spanish verb conjugations, we covered the most useful ones for you.

Once you have familiarized yourself with these, you can go deeper into learning more irregular verbs and other conjugations like the imperfect and conditional. Best of luck!