Do you remember the household chores we saw last week?

Now we are going to add a bit of related vocab, electrodomésticos (appliances) and other stuff…

Have a look below!

Finally, let’s have a look at some adjectives related to this vocabulary 

Enough cleaning! Let’s learn a few more things about irregular verbs…

Do you remember verbal periphrases? When we have two verbs together?

Today we are going to see a couple more, one of them absolutely fundamental, with the verb TENER.

TENER: normal and periphrastic usage

TENER, “to have”, is obviously an essential verb used in multiple ways. Let’s have a first look at the conjugation, which contains a few irregularities. Probably the strangest one is that “G” that appears in the first person:

Despite the irregularities in its conjugation, the meaning of TENER is relatively straightforward. I’ve translated the sentences above.

In English, “to have” is often used in a periphrastic way (followed by another verb): “to have to do something”, as in when you say, “we have to study for the exam”. The same structure with the same meaning exists in Spanish. Have a look:

In order to create this “obligation”, meaning when you have to do something, in Spanish, we conjugate TENER, and we add QUE and an INFINITIVE.

Obviously, you don’t use this structure just for household chores but for a million possible contexts where you have to do something!

While the TENER QUE + INFINITIVE structure carries the meaning of obligation (whether internal or external, but it’s a bit like a chore you have to do), the following periphrastic structure, DEBER + INFINITIVE is more of an internal moral inclination… a bit more like MUST.

DEBER + INFINITIVE

Have a look at the verb deber (must)

The use of DEBER + INFINITIVE is quite straightforward: conjugate DEBER (it’s a regular verb… phew!) and add the infinitive… Voila!

DEBER expresses that sense of moral obligation, as I said before, that idea that in English is conveyed by MUST. 

JUGAR, irregular verb (JUGAR, verbo irregular)

We have already briefly seen the conjugation of JUGAR (to play) as an example of an irregular verb (stem changing verb):

We will discuss this week these stem-changing verbs, but for the time being, let’s play with JUGAR, which is an important verb.

Check how the stem “JUG” changes in different parts of the conversation.

Before we continue with some irregular verbs, there’re a couple of things to learn about the usage of JUGAR

In Spanish, we use JUGAR just for sports and games. We don’t use it for instruments (like TO PLAY). For musical instruments we use TOCAR.

Interestingly enough, even though JUGAR is the verb for sports, when we want to actually say, “to play sports” we don’t use JUGAR, but PRACTICAR DEPORTE or HACER DEPORTE.

Finally, remember that we always JUGAR A + DEFINITE ARTICLE + something:

Yo juego a las cartas (cards)

Ella juega a los videojuegos

Nosotros jugamos al fútbol (a + el)

Ellas juegan a la pelota (ball games)

Now, let’s see some more irregular stem changing verbs.

Stem changing verbs (Verbos con cambio de radical)

Here we go, my friends… this is the most tedious part of learning the Spanish verb conjugations in the present tense (according to the comments we get from students every year) … we’ll get through it together!!!

In the past we explained that some verbs in Spanish are conjugated in an irregular way. Irregular here means that they don’t follow the standard rules of conjugation or not totally. Purely random irregular verbs are very few in number. Most of the irregular verbs do follow their own particular system. Most of these irregular verbs are STEM-changing–verbs (verbos con cambio de raíz o cambio de radical).

A verb can be chopped into two bits, the stem and the ending, like broccoli. The STEM (la raíz) is the first bit, the one that supposedly always stays the same. To the STEM we add endings -AR, -ER, -IR for the infinitive, or the conjugation endings, or the -ANDO, -IENDO of the gerund… For example, in AMAR, the stem is AM; In JUGAR the stem is JUG; In VIVIR the stem is VIV; in ESTAR the stem is EST; and so on…

Stem-changing verbs are irregular because when we conjugate them, the last vowel in the STEM does change a bit… The endings are the same as usual, but the STEM changes. There are 4 groups according to the vowels involved in the change. This change only affects the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd person singular, and the 3^rd person plural only. It doesn’t affect the NOSOTROS-AS nor the VOSOTROS-AS conjugation. That’s why they are also called “BOOT VERBS”…

WHAT?!?!?! Yes, my dear and patient friends… BOOT VERBS. It took me like 10 years teaching Spanish to understand why they’re called boot verbs. Have a look at the conjugation of one of these, QUERER, (to want). In blue tones, you have the persons of the conjugation that change (yo, tú, él, ellos) and in orange, the ones that don’t change (nosotros, vosotros):

Can you guess why they are called BOOT VERBS? (visual clue below)

Yes, my friends, they are called BOOT VERBS because when you see the conjugation written down in the way above, it could be said that the blue bits (irregular parts) resemble the shape of a boot. Nonsense (in my modest opinion). Why aren’t they called SOCK VERBS? Or L-SHAPED VERBS? Or ANGLE BRACKET VERBS? Or PIPE VERBS? That would be cool…

ANYHOW, linguists are oftentimes funny creatures. Now, I hope that out of this long and partially indulgent explanation; you will remember that the last vowel of the STEM in STEM CHANGING VERBS does change when we conjugate, except for the NOSOTROS and VOSOTROS form.

Let’s see one of these fellows in action,

Stem changing verbs: Querer (e – ie) (Verbos con cambio de radical: Querer (e – ie)

QUERER (to want) follows a type of STEM-CHANGE meaning that the E in the STEM (QUE-) changes to IE when we conjugate. As with all STEM CHANGING verbs, the change doesn’t apply to the NOSOTROS and VOSOTROS conjugation.

This verb belongs in the (e-ie) STEM CHANGING verbs group. We’ll see other members of this group in the future.

As you can see in the conjugation above, the endings are totally normal.

In the box above, we read

Do you want a coffee? (you can want things)

Yes, do you want to go to the cafeteria on my street? (you can also want to do something)

Sure

Now we have another example of (e-ie) STEM CHANGING verb, this time an -IR verb,

PREFERIR (to prefer)

The same rules as QUERER apply to PREFERIR.

In the box we read:

Do you prefer washing or drying the dishes? (notice after PREFER, we use the infinitive, not the gerund as in English)

I prefer drying the dishes, thank you.

¡OJO! Notice that in Spanish, in order to say that we prefer something TO something else, we use PREFERIR … A …

Irregular verbs: –go^, first person (Verbos irregulares con -go en la primera persona

A separate type of irregular verbs in the present introduce -GO as the ending for the first person (YO) conjugation. The rest of the conjugation is totally normal. This group includes such common verbs as HACER (to make or to do), SALIR (to go out, to leave) and PONER (to put):

Irregular verbs: –go first person + stem change (Verbos irregulares con -go en la primera persona + cambio de radical)

To add even more fun (hehehe), we also have very important verbs that mix both irregularities. It’s a bit like getting COVID and the FLU for a verb… These verbs introduce the -GO irregularity in the first YO person, and then conjugate like a stem-changing verb.

Let’s see two salient examples, TENER (to have, which you already know) and VENIR (to come back or to return). Try to read carefully and understand the conjugation. I have no doubts you can work it out!

Amigos y amigas… if you’re finding this part of your Spanish learning a bit demanding and even tedious… well, I can tell you that you’re not alone. Practice, though, is becoming more fun as you can start expressing more things…

From our professional and academic experience, we can tell you that irregular conjugations are one of the most overwhelming parts of your Spanish learning journey. However, it’s essential you learn them if you want to have a good command of the language. Try to learn them quickly and properly, and once it’s done, it’s done forever!

¡Hasta luego!