Spanish: An Essential Grammar

(a) Verbs similar to tener:

andar anduve walk poder pude be able to

caber cupe fit poner puse put

estar estuve be saber supe know

haber hube (auxiliary/impersonal)

(b) Verbs similar to venir:

querer quise want hacer hice (buthizo 3rd do

person singular)

(c) Verbs similar to decir:

traer traje bring producir produje produce

Notes:

1 The 3rd person plural ending for verbs in this group is -eronrather than -ieron.

2 All verbs ending in -ducirfollow the pattern of producir.

ver vi vio see

The verbs ir‘go’ and ser‘be’ share the same preterite forms (with regular

stress on the endings). These are: fui,fuiste,fue,fuimos,fuisteis,fueron.

Dar‘give’ and ver‘see’ have a stem reduced to a single consonant (i.e. d

and v) and regular stress (on the endings): di, dio, etc.

Ichanged to yor deleted in 3rd person endings

In -er/-ir verbs whose stem ends in a vowel, e.g. le-er, ca-er, constru-ir, the

3rd person endings will be -yóand -yeronrather than -ióand -ieron. As

in the present tense and present subjunctive, the reason is that Spanish does

not permit an unstressed ibetween vowels.

In verbs whose stem ends in one of the consonants llor ñ, the 3rd person

endings will be -óand -eron rather than -ióand -ieron. These patterns are

illustrated in Table 10.24.

Other common verbs like leerare creer‘believe’ and oír‘hear’.

Verbs that pattern like construirare huir‘flee’ and disminuir‘diminish’.

Like gruñirare teñir‘dye/tint’ and reñir ‘quarrel’ (these two are also radical

changing).

Examples of -llverbs are: bullir‘seethe/boil’ and zambullirse‘dive’.

10.4.2.3

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2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1011

1

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3 4 5 6 7 8 9

20111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

30111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

40

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10

Verb forms

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