Download Updated AR Conjugation Notes - Holy Angels Regional School

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Notes on Verb Conjugation
A Spanish verb belongs to a “family” just like in English we have phonetic
“word families.” In English we have the “at family” and we can make
many words by changing the initial sounds and keeping the family sound.
The “at” family is mat, rat, cat, fat, sat, etc. Spanish verbs have a family
and the verb endings change according to that family.
We are studying the “ar" verb ending. A verb that ends in “ar” belongs to
this family. Hablar, necesitar, and pagar are introduced for the first
lesson. All “ar” verb endings are: “o”, “as”, “a” ,”amos” , “an”. This
change coincides to the person or people who do the action.
Let’s look at the first three people:
First person is “I” or “yo” in Spanish
Second person is “You” or “tú” in Spanish
Third person is “He” or “Él”; “She” or “Ella” and “Usted” or “You
(formal).”
The verb in the infinitive is when no one is doing the action just like the
list above. A conjugated verb is a verb that tells who is doing the action.
Let’s take the verb “hablar” - to speak and work through the conjugation.
I speak = yo hablo
You speak = tú hablas
He speaks = él habla
She speaks = ella habla
You formal speak= Ud. habla
Notice that the Spanish word hablar is changed by removing the “ar”
ending and replacing it with either “o”, “as”, or “a” along with the
pronoun. The pronoun as well as the ending of the verb tells the reader or
listener who the person is that is doing the action.
Students are encouraged to memorize the order from first person to third
person and point as they do so. For example point to yourself and say
“yo” point out in front of yourself and say “Tú” and then point to the side
and say “Él, ella, Ud.”
Then using the same motions point to yourself and say “o”, point directly
in front of yourself and say “as” and finally, point out to the side and say,
“a.”
You will soon be on your way to memorizing the first three verb endings
with the subject pronouns in the singular form!