Spanish Verb Types Explained

Our list of the 600 most common Spanish verbs splits like this: 372 are regular, 71 have a spelling change and 157 are irregular. Yet nine of the ten most common verbs are irregular, and the tenth is hablar. Each of the 600 has a page in our Spanish conjugation tables with every form in 15 tenses, and the type label on each page links to the matching section below.

The three types at a glance

Stem-changing verbs such as pensar (pienso) and pedir (pido) count as irregular on our pages, as they do for the Real Academia Española (RAE), the Spanish language academy. Many textbooks treat them as a fourth type, and they get their own section below.

Which type is the most common?

That depends on what you count. Count verbs, and the regular type wins easily, with 372 of our 600. Count how often they're used, and the irregular type wins. Our list is ranked by how often each verb occurs in film and TV subtitles, and nine of the top ten are irregular: ser, estar, hacer, decir, tener, poder, haber, ir and ver. The tenth is hablar. The top 20 has 15 irregular verbs, 4 regular ones and a single spelling-change verb, llegar.

Further down, the balance shifts. In the top 100, 51 verbs are regular, 44 are irregular and 5 have a spelling change. So irregular verbs make up just over a quarter of the list and three quarters of its top 20. You meet them first and most often, while most of the verbs you add later will be regular.

Regular verbs

A regular verb keeps its stem in every form and adds the standard endings. Drop the -ar, -er or -ir to find the stem. There's one model for each ending: hablar (to speak), comer (to eat) and vivir (to live). Here is the present tense of all three:

In the present, comer and vivir differ only in the nosotros and vosotros forms: comemos and coméis, but vivimos and vivís. Their preterites match as well: comí, comió, comieron and viví, vivió, vivieron, against hablé, habló, hablaron for -ar verbs. The past participles are hablado, comido and vivido, and the gerunds hablando, comiendo and viviendo.

The ending is a good first clue to a verb's type. Of the 428 -ar verbs in our list, 316 are regular, about three in four, and only 50 are irregular. The -er and -ir verbs go the other way: 56 of our 85 -er verbs are irregular, and so are 51 of our 87 -ir verbs. Even the irregular -ar verbs are mild. All but three are stem changers or accent verbs, both covered below, and the three are estar, dar and andar.

One tense is safe for almost every verb. Only three Spanish verbs have an irregular imperfect: ser (era), ir (iba) and ver (veía). The other 597 in our list follow hablaba, comía and vivía.

Spelling-change verbs

A spelling-change verb has a regular stem and regular endings, but one letter changes so the stem keeps its sound. Buscar (to look for) gives busco and buscó like any -ar verb, yet “I looked for” is busqué. The k sound is the same in every form, and only the letters that spell it change.

The RAE counts these verbs as regular, since the endings never change. We give them a label of their own for teaching, as the Instituto Cervantes curriculum and many US textbooks do, because you still have to know which letter to write.

The changes come from how Spanish spells its sounds. When an ending puts a new vowel after c, g or z, the spelling changes to keep the sound the same.

• c and qu. Before a, o or u, c sounds like k. Before e or i it sounds like the th in “think” in central and northern Spain, and like s in Latin America. So a k sound before e is written qu: busqué.
• g and gu. Before e or i, g sounds like the Spanish j. To keep the hard g of llegar before e, Spanish writes gu, with a silent u: llegué.
• z and c. Spanish writes z before a, o and u, but normally uses c for the same sound before e and i. So cruzar gives crucé.
• gu and gü. The u in gue is silent. When it has to be heard, it takes two dots, called a dieresis: averiguar gives averigüé.
• g to j, c to z. In -ger, -gir and consonant + -cer verbs, the g or c sits before e or i, where it sounds soft. Put an o or a after it and it would turn hard, so the letter changes: proteger gives protejo, and vencer gives venzo.

Which forms change depends on which endings bring in the new vowel. In an -ar verb, only two sets of endings start with e: the preterite yo form (hablé) and the present subjunctive (hable, hablemos). So -car, -gar, -zar and -guar verbs change there and nowhere else: busqué, busque, busquemos. In -er and -ir verbs, the endings that start with o or a are the present yo form (como) and the present subjunctive (coma, vivamos). So proteger changes in protejo, proteja and protejamos, and keeps its g everywhere else. The commands built on the subjunctive change with it.

That's why the spelling change in pagar is pagué, not pago, which is as regular as hablo. The u appears only where an e follows: pagué, pague, paguemos.

Our 71 spelling-change verbs follow six rules:

The five in our top 100 are llegar, buscar, sacar, pagar and tocar, all -car or -gar verbs.

Some verbs have a spelling change that their label doesn't show, because the irregular label wins whenever a verb has both. Empezar changes its stem (empiezo) and also writes c before e (empecé). Jugar gives juego and jugué, elegir gives elijo, and seguir drops the u of gu before o: sigo. All four are labeled irregular on our pages.

Irregular verbs

An irregular verb breaks the regular pattern somewhere other than a spelling swap. The RAE defines it as a verb that, for historical reasons, doesn't keep the model forms, as poner shows with pongo. The label covers a wide range. Ser, which uses more than one root (soy, era, fui), sits under it beside escribir, which is regular in every form but escrito.

Most of the 157 belong to a family with a rule of its own. Here is how they split, with each verb counted once:

Plenty of verbs fit more than one family. Tener has a yo-go present (tengo), a stem change (tienes), a strong preterite (tuve) and an irregular future (tendré). The table puts each verb in one row, so 12 stem changers, tener and poder among them, sit in the second row instead of the first. The sections below count every member of each family, so their numbers overlap and add up to more than 157.

Stem-changing verbs

A stem-changing verb changes the vowel of its stem wherever that vowel is stressed. Pensar (to think) gives pienso, piensas, piensa and piensan, but pensamos and pensáis, where the stress falls on the ending. Of our 600 verbs, 97 change their stem this way, and every one is labeled irregular on our pages.

The stressed forms are every person of the present except nosotros and vosotros, the same persons in the present subjunctive, and the tú command (piensa). Write the present out with the singular on the left and the plural on the right, and the changed forms trace the outline of a boot. That's why textbooks also call them boot verbs or shoe verbs. UK schools often call them radical-changing verbs, from radical, meaning root. The RAE counts them as irregular too.

The change goes back to Latin. A short e or o that carried the stress became ie or ue in Spanish, so Latin tenes became tienes, and portam became puerta (door). A long e did not change. Spanish spelling doesn't show which kind of vowel a verb started with, so the infinitive can't tell you whether it changes. Entregar gives entrego, but entender gives entiendo. Comer gives como, but contar gives cuento.

Our 97 stem changers follow four patterns:

The counts include five of our top 20, whose stem change comes with other irregularities: tener (tienes), venir (vienes), querer (quiero), poder (puedo) and decir (dices). Jugar is the only u → ue verb in our list, and the RAE gives it a conjugation model of its own. Oler adds an h to its changed forms: huelo.

The -ir stem changers go further. All 33 in our list also change in the third persons of the preterite, and there the vowel becomes i or u: pedir gives pidió and pidieron, dormir gives durmió and durmieron, and sentir gives sintió. The same i or u turns up in the gerund (pidiendo, durmiendo), in the nosotros and vosotros forms of the present subjunctive (pidamos, durmamos) and in the imperfect subjunctive (pidiera). The -ar and -er stem changers keep a regular preterite: pensar gives pensó, and volver gives volvió. The exceptions are verbs with other irregularities too, such as poder (pudo) and querer (quiso).

The left column changes in three places. The right column changes in six.

yo-go and -zco verbs

Two families change the yo form of the present, and the present subjunctive is built on that form, so it changes too.

In 21 of our verbs, the yo form ends in -go: tengo, vengo, pongo, salgo, hago, digo, traigo, caigo, oigo and valgo, plus compounds such as obtener and suponer, which follow tener and poner. The g carries through the whole present subjunctive: tenga, haga, diga. Tener, venir and decir also change the stem vowel in the other stressed forms (tienes, vienes, dices), and many yo-go verbs have a strong preterite and an irregular future as well.

The -zco verbs end in a vowel + -cer or -cir, and add a z before the c when the ending starts with o or a. Conocer gives conozco and conozca, parecer gives parezco, ofrecer gives ofrezco and conducir gives conduzco. We have 19 of them. Hacer and decir are the exceptions, with hago and digo, so every vowel + -cer or -cir verb in our list is irregular one way or another.

Don't confuse them with the consonant + -cer verbs on the spelling-change list. Say them aloud and the difference is plain. Venzo keeps the sound of vencer, with z standing in for c. Conozco adds a k sound that conocer doesn't have, and that added sound is why the RAE counts conocer as irregular.

The four -ducir verbs, conducir, producir, reducir and introducir, also take a j in the preterite: conduje, condujo and condujeron, and produje for producir.

-uir verbs

Verbs ending in -uir add a y before o, e or a. Construir gives construyo, construyes, construye and construyen, with construimos and construís left alone, and the subjunctive construya. Our list has four: construir, destruir, incluir and huir. In the preterite and the gerund, the y also replaces an unstressed i between vowels, as it does in leer: construyó, construyeron, destruyendo.

The rule doesn't touch -guir verbs such as seguir, where the u is silent. And under the 2010 spelling rules, huir's preterite yo form is hui, with no written accent.

Strong preterites

A regular preterite stresses the ending, which is why hablé and habló carry a written accent. A strong preterite stresses the stem, so the yo and él forms end in a plain -e and -o: tener gives tuve and tuvo, hacer gives hice and hizo, and decir gives dije and dijo. Our list has 27 strong preterites, counting compounds such as obtener and predecir.

The new stems come in three kinds:

• u: tuve, estuve, pude, puse, supe, anduve, hube
• i: hice, quise, vine
• j: dije, traje, conduje, produje

The j verbs drop the i of the ellos ending: dijeron, trajeron and condujeron, against tuvieron. And hizo is spelled with z to keep the sound of hice, because c before o would sound like k.

Irregular futures

Twenty verbs in our list have an irregular future stem. The endings stay regular, and the conditional uses the same stem. The stems change in three ways:

• The vowel of the infinitive ending drops and a d comes in: tendré, pondré, saldré, vendré, valdré.
• The vowel drops: sabré, podré, querré, habré.
• A vowel and a consonant drop: haré, diré.

The other nine of the 20 are compounds of tener, poner and hacer, such as mantener, proponer and deshacer. No -ar verb in our list has an irregular future. Learn these 11 and their compounds, and every other future in the 600 is built on the whole infinitive: hablaré, comeré, viviré.

Irregular past participles

Eighteen verbs in our list have an irregular past participle, ending in -cho or -to instead of -ado or -ido. They include hecho, dicho, visto, puesto, vuelto, muerto, escrito, roto, abierto and descubierto, and most of the rest are verbs built on these, such as describir and devolver. You need them for every perfect tense, as in he hecho (I have done).

Six verbs are irregular only here: escribir, romper, abrir, descubrir, cubrir and describir. Every other form of escribir is regular (escribo, escribí, escribiré), so many teachers call it a regular verb with an irregular participle. Our pages label it irregular because of that one form.

A written accent doesn't make a participle irregular. Traído, leído and oído carry one, but the RAE treats them as regular, with the same -ido ending as vivido.

Accent verbs and leer

Nine verbs are labeled irregular only because of a written accent. In enviar and actuar, the i or u of the stem is stressed in the boot forms, and it takes an accent: envío, envías, envía and envían, but enviamos. Actuar gives actúo, and continuar (continúo), confiar (confío), reunir (reúno), criar, espiar, guiar and graduar work the same way.

Most -iar verbs in our list don't. Cambiar gives cambio, where the i is never stressed, and so do estudiar (estudio) and anunciar (anuncio). We have 15 -iar verbs like cambiar, all regular, and 5 like enviar, and nothing in the spelling tells you which way a new one goes.

Whether these nine count as irregular is disputed, even inside the RAE. Its conjugation tables list enviar and actuar among the regular verbs, while its grammar, the NGLE, treats verbs like them as a kind of irregular verb. Our label matches the grammar. A teacher who calls enviar regular has the RAE's own tables on their side.

Leer, creer and poseer are labeled irregular for a related reason. Their stems end in a vowel, and the unstressed i of an ending becomes y between two vowels: leyó, leyeron, leyendo, creyó. The preterite yo form leí and the participle leído keep the i, with a written accent. The RAE's dictionary of doubts calls leer regular in its morphology, though not in how it is written and pronounced. Our tables follow the RAE's Glossary of Grammatical Terms instead, which counts every -er verb whose stem ends in a vowel as irregular, leer included.

The verbs with a pattern of their own

Seven verbs fit no family, and all seven are in our top 20. Ser is first and estar second, and haber, ir, ver, saber and dar rank 7, 8, 9, 11 and 18. They're best learned one at a time, the way you'd learn vocabulary.

• Ser (to be) uses more than one root: soy, eres, es, era, fui. Its tú command is sé.
• Ir (to go) does the same: voy, vas, va, iba, iré. It shares its preterite with ser, fui, fue and fueron, so fue can mean “was” or “went”.
• Estar, the other verb for “to be”, gives estoy, estás and está, and a strong preterite, estuve.
• Haber is the helper verb for every perfect tense, as in he hablado (I have spoken). Its present runs he, has, ha, hemos, habéis, han, with hay for “there is”. Its preterite is hube and its future habré.
• Ver (to see) is nearly regular, but its stem is just v: vi, vio. Add veo, veía and the participle visto.
• Saber (to know) gives sé, supe, sabré and sepa.
• Dar (to give) gives doy, and takes -er and -ir endings in the preterite: di, dio.

In what order to learn them

1. The regular models. Hablar, comer and vivir cover 372 of the 600 verbs, and 443 with the spelling-change verbs, which take the same endings.
2. The top ten, by heart. Nine of them are irregular, so learn them early, one verb at a time.
3. Stem changers, by the boot rule. One rule covers all 97. Start with e → ie and o → ue, then add the -ir verbs and their extra forms.
4. The spelling changes, with the preterite and the subjunctive. That's where busqué and llegué turn up, and each rule is one letter.
5. The other families, tense by tense. Take yo-go and -zco verbs with the present, strong preterites with the preterite and irregular futures with the future.
6. The small groups as you meet them. Accent verbs, -uir verbs and participle-only verbs such as escribir are a handful each.

To check yourself as you go, the Spanish verb conjugation quiz asks for one form at a time and marks each answer when you press Enter. To work on paper, the Spanish verb conjugation worksheet generator prints exercises for the verbs and tenses you choose. Put pensar, volver and pedir on one sheet, tick only the preterite, and the él row shows the whole -ir rule: pensó, volvió, pidió.

Frequently asked questions

Licenses and credits

Conjugation tables come from English Wiktionary through kaikki.org (CC BY-SA 4.0). Verbs are ranked by Hermit Dave's FrequencyWords list, built from OpenSubtitles 2018 (CC BY-SA 4.0).