Leccion 2.2

-ER and -IR verbs in the Present Tense

In Spanish, verbs ending in -ER and -IR are integral to the language, forming the second and third conjugation groups, respectively. Mastering these verbs is essential for effective communication because they are very prevalent in everyday speech and writing. These verbs will have a different conjugation to -AR verbs. However, they are similar enough to each other that they can be presented together even though there are some differences.

To conjugate regular -er/-ir verbs in the present tense, just as when conjugating -ar verbs, you need to remove the ending from the infinitive form of the verb so that the ‘root’ or ‘stem’ of the verb remains and then add the endings to indicate the subject of the sentence. Let’s learn the endings.

Comer-to eat
Com-stem/root

Er-Verbs

Escribir-to write

Escrib-stem/root

-Ir verbs

The irregular verb ‘Ir’ in the Present Tense

The Spanish verb ‘ir’, meaning ‘to go’ is an important verb in the Spanish language because of its frequent use. It expresses where someone is going, it is used when forming expressions in the future and indicating habitual actions. Let’s conjugate the verb ‘ir’.

Ir-to go

The contruction ‘ir + a + place’ is used In order to express where someone is going. For example ‘I go to the library on Saturdays’ would be expressed by saying ‘Yo voy a la biblioteca los sábados’.

The contruction ‘ir + a + infinitive’ is used in order to express what someone is doing. For example, ‘I am going to study on Tuesday’ would be expressed ‘Yo voy a estudiar el martes’.

Both of these constructions give you the ability of expressing actions in the future without having to use the future tense in Spanish which is helpful when communicating as a beginning language learner.

In order to be able to use these constructions with the verb ‘ir’ it is important to understand contractions in Spanish. There are two contractions ‘al’ and ‘del’. They are formed by combining prepositions ‘a’ and ‘de’ with the masculine singular definite article ‘el’ (the).

One of the contractions occurs when the preposition ‘a’ (to) is before ‘el’.

‘a’ + ‘el’ = al

For example: ‘Voy a el museo’ (I go to the museum) would be correctly expressed ‘Voy al museo.

The second contraction occurs when the preposition ‘de’ (of/from) is before the article ‘el’ ‘de’ + ‘el’ = del. This second contraction will be used later in this course.

The Present Progressive

The present progressive is useful to know because it allows speakers to communicate actions currently happening at the moment of speaking. It is the equivalent of ‘-ing’ constructions in English such as ‘I’m speaking’, ‘She is swimming’ etc.

In order to form the Present progressive, the verb ‘estar’ must be used. Let’s review the verb estar.

The next step to forming the Present progressive is to add endings to the end of the ‘-ar’, ‘-er’ and ‘-ir’ verbs.

In verbs like ‘Leer’, where adding ‘iendo’ will put the ‘i’ between two vowels, a ‘y’ is used to preserve the correct pronunciation and prevent awkward vowel combinations.

Finally, combine ‘Estar’ + ‘ando’ or ‘iendo’ form of the verbs.