The Spanish verb is the engine of the sentence. It carries the subject (through the ending), the time (tense), the speaker's stance on whether something is real or imagined (mood), and — in compound tenses — even the speaker's perception of how recent the action feels. Before diving into any single tense, it helps to see the whole landscape: how many conjugation classes there are, how many moods and tenses you will eventually meet, and which features of the system are specific to the Spanish you hear in Madrid, Sevilla, or Bilbao.
This page is the map. The pages it links to are the detail.
Three conjugation classes
Every Spanish verb belongs to one of three classes, identified by the ending of the infinitive:
- -ar verbs (hablar, trabajar, cantar) — roughly 90% of the lexicon and almost all new coinages: tuitear (to tweet), googlear (to google), wasapear (to message on WhatsApp).
- -er verbs (comer, beber, aprender) — a smaller, mostly closed class.
- -ir verbs (vivir, escribir, subir) — also smaller; shares most endings with -er.
You don't pick the class — the verb comes with it, baked into the infinitive. The good news is that the three classes share more than they differ, especially -er and -ir, which diverge only in the nosotros and vosotros forms.
Hablo español, como tarde y vivo en Granada.
I speak Spanish, I eat late, and I live in Granada.
That single sentence uses one verb from each class.
Six person forms — including vosotros
Peninsular Spanish has six distinct person forms in every tense, where Latin American Spanish typically uses five. The difference is the second-person plural:
| Person | Singular | Plural (Spain) | Plural (Latin America) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | yo | nosotros / nosotras | nosotros / nosotras |
| 2nd familiar | tú | vosotros / vosotras | ustedes |
| 2nd formal | usted | ustedes | ustedes |
| 3rd | él / ella | ellos / ellas | ellos / ellas |
In Spain, vosotros is the everyday way to address a group of friends, family, or anyone you'd address as tú individually. Ustedes is reserved for formal plural — strangers, customers, an audience. In Latin America, ustedes covers both, and vosotros survives mainly in Bibles, old literature, and song lyrics.
Practically: if you are learning Spanish to use in Spain, you must conjugate every tense in six forms, not five. Every paradigm in this guide includes the vosotros row.
¿Vosotros vais al concierto esta noche?
Are you guys going to the concert tonight?
Señores, ¿ustedes ya han pedido?
Sirs, have you already ordered? (formal plural)
Three moods
Spanish has three moods — three different "stances" a verb can take toward reality:
- Indicative (indicativo) — for facts and asserted information. Viene mañana. (He's coming tomorrow.)
- Subjunctive (subjuntivo) — for content that is wished, doubted, hypothetical, or filtered through emotion. Quiero que venga mañana. (I want him to come tomorrow.)
- Imperative (imperativo) — for commands. ¡Ven mañana! (Come tomorrow!)
A useful triplet to keep in mind:
Viene mañana.
He's coming tomorrow. (indicative — fact)
Quiero que venga mañana.
I want him to come tomorrow. (subjunctive — wish)
¡Ven mañana!
Come tomorrow! (imperative — command)
For English speakers, the subjunctive is the mood that requires the biggest mental adjustment. English uses it only in fossilized contexts ("if I were you," "I demand that he be present"); Spanish uses it constantly and obligatorily. We treat it in depth in its own section.
The conditional (hablaría, comería) is sometimes called a fourth mood, but most modern Spanish grammars classify it as a tense within the indicative. That's the convention we follow.
The tense inventory
Peninsular Spanish has roughly 14 tenses across the indicative and subjunctive. That number sounds intimidating, but only about seven do most of the daily work; the rest are either restricted to formal writing or used only in specific narrative contexts.
Indicative tenses
Simple tenses (one word):
- Presente — hablo (I speak / I'm speaking)
- Pretérito perfecto simple (a.k.a. pretérito indefinido) — hablé (I spoke)
- Pretérito imperfecto — hablaba (I was speaking / I used to speak)
- Futuro simple — hablaré (I will speak)
- Condicional simple — hablaría (I would speak)
Compound tenses (haber + past participle):
- Pretérito perfecto compuesto — he hablado (I have spoken)
- Pretérito pluscuamperfecto — había hablado (I had spoken)
- Futuro compuesto — habré hablado (I will have spoken)
- Condicional compuesto — habría hablado (I would have spoken)
- Pretérito anterior — hube hablado (literary only — "as soon as I had spoken...")
Subjunctive tenses
- Presente de subjuntivo — hable
- Pretérito imperfecto de subjuntivo — hablara / hablase
- Pretérito perfecto de subjuntivo — haya hablado
- Pretérito pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo — hubiera / hubiese hablado
The seven workhorses
In real spoken Spain, you can get an enormous distance with just these seven:
- Presente (hablo)
- Pretérito perfecto compuesto (he hablado)
- Pretérito indefinido (hablé)
- Pretérito imperfecto (hablaba)
- Futuro / ir a
- infinitive (hablaré / voy a hablar)
- Presente de subjuntivo (hable)
- Imperativo (habla, hablad)
Everything else is either a refinement of these or restricted to specific registers.
Non-finite forms
Beyond the conjugated forms, every verb has three non-finite forms — invariable forms that don't carry person:
- Infinitive (infinitivo) — hablar, comer, vivir. The dictionary form.
- Gerund (gerundio) — hablando, comiendo, viviendo. Used in progressives (estoy hablando) and adverbial constructions.
- Past participle (participio) — hablado, comido, vivido. Used in all compound tenses (he hablado) and in passive constructions (es hablado).
There is also the periphrastic future, ir a + infinitive (voy a hablar, I'm going to speak), which behaves like a tense in practice but is built from simpler parts. In Spain it competes with the simple future and often wins in casual speech for near-future plans.
Voy a llamarte luego, ¿vale?
I'll call you later, okay?
A peninsular quirk: the present perfect
One of the most noticeable differences between Spain and Latin America is when to use he hablado (present perfect) vs hablé (preterite). In Spain, especially in central and northern dialects, he hablado is the default for actions that happened today or in any time frame the speaker still feels connected to:
Esta mañana he desayunado fuera.
I had breakfast out this morning. (Spain — common with 'esta mañana')
Esta mañana desayuné fuera.
I had breakfast out this morning. (Mexico, Argentina — the default everywhere)
In most of Latin America, desayuné would be the standard choice even for things that happened an hour ago. A Spaniard who said desayuné about this morning's breakfast would sound subtly off — as though they were narrating something further in the past. We have a whole page on this choice; for now, just be aware that Spain leans heavily on the compound form.
The same idea expressed in three tenses gives a feel for the system:
Hablo con mi madre todas las semanas.
I talk to my mother every week. (present — habitual)
He hablado con mi madre esta mañana.
I've talked to my mother this morning. (present perfect — today, still relevant)
Hablé con mi madre la semana pasada.
I talked to my mother last week. (preterite — closed past)
A peninsular quirk: distinción
Spain still distinguishes the c/z sound (/θ/ — the th of English "thin") from the s sound (/s/). This is called distinción. Latin America has seseo — both spellings pronounced /s/.
Distinción doesn't change how anything is spelled, but it does change how it sounds, and it matters for verb forms that contain a c/z:
Empecé a estudiar a las nueve.
I started studying at nine. (empecé pronounced /em.pe.'θe/ in Spain, /em.pe.'se/ in Mexico)
Conozco a tu hermana.
I know your sister. (conozco pronounced with /θ/ in Spain)
You'll see the impact on spelling-change verbs (-zar → -c-) in the spelling-changes overview. For now, just register that a verb form like empecé is not homophonous with empese in Spain — the c there is a real /θ/.
What's coming next
The pages that follow zoom in:
- Cómo se conjuga: lo básico — the mechanics of stem + ending.
- Las tres conjugaciones: -ar, -er, -ir — the three classes in detail.
- Verbos regulares e irregulares — what "irregular" actually means.
- Los modos verbales — indicative, subjunctive, imperative.
Common mistakes
❌ Vosotros hablan muy rápido.
Wrong: vosotros takes -áis (habláis), not the third-person plural ending.
✅ Vosotros habláis muy rápido.
Correct: vosotros habláis.
This is the single most common slip for learners coming from a Latin-American textbook: applying ustedes endings to vosotros. They are not interchangeable in Spain.
❌ Esta mañana hablé con mi jefe.
Not wrong, but un-Spanish: most Spaniards would use the present perfect for events earlier today.
✅ Esta mañana he hablado con mi jefe.
Natural in Spain — same day = present perfect.
❌ Yo soy estudiando español.
Wrong: ser is never used with the gerund. The progressive uses estar.
✅ Yo estoy estudiando español.
Correct: estoy + gerund for actions in progress.
❌ Quiero que vienes mañana.
Wrong: 'quiero que' triggers the subjunctive, not the indicative.
✅ Quiero que vengas mañana.
Correct: subjunctive after a verb of wanting.
❌ Ustedes sois mis mejores amigos.
Wrong in Spain: ustedes is formal plural; for friends you use vosotros.
✅ Vosotros sois mis mejores amigos.
Correct: vosotros for the familiar plural.
Key takeaways
- Three conjugation classes: -ar (the dominant one), -er, -ir.
- Six person forms in Spain: yo, tú, él/ella/usted, nosotros, vosotros, ellos/ellas/ustedes.
- Three moods: indicative (facts), subjunctive (non-asserted), imperative (commands).
- About 14 tenses on paper; ~7 do nearly all the work in real conversation.
- Spain uses the present perfect (he hablado) for today's events much more than Latin America.
- Distinción (/θ/ vs /s/) is real in Spain — it doesn't change spelling, but it changes how c and z sound.
Hold onto this map. Every later page is a deeper dive into one corner of it.
Now practice Spanish
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Spanish→Related Topics
- Las tres conjugaciones: -ar, -er, -irA1 — The three Spanish conjugation classes side by side — endings, relative frequency, and where -er and -ir actually diverge.
- Los modos verbales: indicativo, subjuntivo, imperativoA2 — The three Spanish moods — indicative for facts, subjunctive for non-asserted content, imperative for commands — and why they matter for every sentence you build.
- Cómo elegir entre pretérito y pretérito perfectoA2 — Peninsular Spanish's defining past-tense choice. He comido for actions inside the current time frame (hoy, esta semana, este año, en mi vida); comí for actions outside it (ayer, la semana pasada, hace dos años). Time markers do most of the work. Plus the peninsular vs Latin American contrast and the northern Spain counter-trap.