A verb is a word that means everything from an action to an opinion, so laugh, go, like, hate, love, drink, fall, smile, hear, write turn, are all examples of verbs. In English the verb is not changed by who is doing the action. As an example;
In these phrases, “I like cheese”, “we like cheese” and “you like cheese”, the verb “like” stays the same. In Spanish the form of the verb is changed by who is doing the doing. It might sound odd now but it will make sense later!
So lets look at the three main verb types in Spanish. They are the verbs that end in the letters ar, er and ir. they can then be subdivided into regular and irregular. As we are just starting we will stick to the regular verbs.
Verbs That End In AR
In the Spanish language the group of verbs that end in ar are the most common, so they are a good place to start.
If we use the Spanish verb TOMAR, it means a few different things, but in our case it means to drink. To say “I drink wine” in Spanish we would remove the a and r , then to add an o. to give us “tomo vino”. You could add yo ( the Spanish word for I) at the start of the sentence but it would be unnecessary.
To say “you drink wine” to a single person, again remove the a and r, and add as, to give “tomar vino”.
If we wanted to say that he or she drinks wine, then we remove the ar and add just an a, to give us “toma vino”. This version of tomar would also be used in a formal situation, or if talking to someone for the first time.
When learning our basic Spanish verbs and wanting to say “we drink wine” we add amos to give us “tomamos vino”.
If we wanted to refer to a group when using “you drink wine”, we would add áis, giving “tomáis vino”
“They drink wine” would require the addition of an, so “toman vino” would be the correct phrase.
These are obviously all in what is called the present tense, which means that it describes what is occurring now,we will cover the other tenses (future, past etc) and the ER and IR verbs at a later date. I hope that this article has been of help and I hope that you stick with Spanish as it is a very rewarding language.
Good Luck.
