Blog

So you’ve conquered the Present Tense in Spanish with Regular verbs and now you are ready to take on the irregular verbs! Great! Now, there are a fair few to get your head around, but if you learn them in groups it makes it much easier. The typical way to group the Irregular verbs in the present tense are as follows:

• YO GO
• ‘OY’
• Stem changers

There are also verbs that are irregular, in the present tense, in terms of their spelling but not in the way they are pronounced. In other words, when you say them out loud, they sound regular, but on paper they are not spelt the regular way. We often call these ‘Spell changing verbs‘ or if you want to get all academic about it, they are officially called ‘Orthographically changing verbs‘. There’s a fair few of these verbs, so hold off for now and when you are ready you can find them HERE.

So, for now, let’s get started on the first group of Irregular verbs in the present tense:

YO GO

The first group tend to be called the ‘yo go verbs‘. This is because for these verbs their ‘yo‘ form ends in ‘go‘.

These 6 verbs are totally regular in the rest of the formation but take care with the last 2:

Optional pronoun	Salir (to go out)	Hacer (to do/make)	Poner (to put)	Valer (to be worth)	Caer (to fall)	Traer (to bring)
(yo)	Salgo	Hago	Pongo	Valgo	Caigo*	Traigo*
(tú)	Sales	Haces	Pones	Vales	Caes	Traes
(él/ella)	Sale	Hace	Pone	Vale	Cae	Trae
(nosotros/as)	Salimos	Hacemos	Ponemos	Valemos	Caemos	Traemos
(vosotros/as)	Salís	Hacéis	Ponéis	Valéis	Caéis	Traéis
(ellos/ellas)	Salen	Hacen	Ponen	Valen	Caen	Traen

*These two gain an extra ‘i‘ as ‘cago‘ and ‘trago‘ already mean something else.

• Try not to forget the ‘i‘ in ‘caigo’ because if you do say ‘(yo) cago’ you are basically saying ‘I soil/I am soiling myself’ instead of ‘I fall/I’m falling’.

• ‘Trago’ means ‘I swallow/ I’m swallowing‘ so would cause some confusion if you said ‘I’m swallowing a bottle of wine’ instead of ‘I’m bringing a bottle of wine’.

Here is another set of ‘yo = go verbs‘ only these have irregularities throughout:

Optional pronoun	Tener (to have)	Venir (it come)	Decir (to say/speak)	Oír (to hear)
(yo)	Tengo	Vengo	Digo	Oigo
(tú)	Tienes	Vienes	Dices	Oyes
(él/ella)	Tiene	Viene	Dice	Oye
(nosotros/as)	Tenemos	Venimos	Decimos	Oímos
(vosotros/as)	Tenéis	Venís	Decís	Oís
(ellos/ellas)	Tienen	Vienen	Dicen	Oyen

Therefore, the above verbs would be considered both ‘YO GO’ and ‘Stem Changing Verbs’ because not only does the end of the verb change but there are also changes to the stem of the verb.

More on ‘Stem Changing Verbs’:

Personally, I also like to call certain stem changing verbs ‘boot verbs‘. This is because if you were to write them out with the singulars on the left and the plurals on the right and then draw a boot around them, this is where the irregularity occurs.

Take a look at what I mean:

As there are a fair few Stem Changing Verbs (AKA boot verbs) in the present tense, again, these are best dealt with in groups. Let’s go…

Irregular verbs where the stem changes from ‘e‘ to ‘ie‘:

i.e: Querer (To want/to love)

There are MANY verbs in this group, but here is a list of some of the popular ones. All are formed with the same stem irregularity as the verb QUERER (e = ie) but don’t forget that the endings will change according to whether the verb is an -AR, -ER or -IR verb.

Examples:

• advertir to alert
• atender to attend to
• atravesar to cross
• calentar to heat
• cerrar to close
• comenzar to begin
• confesar to confess
• convertir to convert
• defender to defend
• despertar to wake up
• divertir to amuse
• empezar to begin
• encender to light
• entender to understand
• enterrar to bury
• fregar to scrub
• mentir to lie
• merendar to have afternoon snack
• negar to deny
• pensar to think
• perder to lose
• preferir to prefer
• querer to want
• sugerir to suggest

Now let’s look at the stem changing verbs (AKA boot verbs) that change from ‘o‘ to ‘ue‘:

i.e: Poder (To be able to)

We have a lot of irregular verbs in this group, so here’s a pretty decent list of popular offenders:

• acordar to agree
• acostar to put to bed
• almorzar to eat lunch
• aprobar to approve
• colgar to hang
• contar to count/to tell
• costar to cost
• demostrar to demonstrate
• devolver to return an item
• dormir to sleep
• encontrar to find
• forzar to force
• morder to bite
• morir to die
• mostrar to show
• mover to move an object
• poder to be able to
• probar to try out/try on/taste
• recordar to remember
• resolver to solve
• sonar to sound/ring
• soñar to dream
• volar to fly
• volver to return

Finally, we have the stem changing verbs (AKA boot verbs) where the stem changes from ‘e‘ to ‘i‘:

i.e: Pedir (To ask for/order)

Again, there are a fair few verbs with this irregularity, but not as many as in the first two groups. Here are some popular verbs:

• competir to compete
• concebir to conceive
• despedir to fire
• impedir to impede
• medir to measure
• pedir to ask for
• repetir to repeat
• servir to serve
• vestir to dress

Just a note!

Not all stem changing verbs can be considered ‘boot verbs’ because they may have irregularities ‘outside’ the boot (in the nosotros or vosotros forms). Here are a few examples of key verbs with a mixture of irregularities:

Optional pronoun	Ser (to be) Permanent	Estar (to be) Temporary	Ir (to go)	Dar (to give)
(yo)	Soy	Estoy	Voy	Doy
(tú)	Eres	Estás	Vas	Das
(él/ella)	Es	Está	Va	Da
(nosotros/as)	Somos	Estamos	Vamos	Damos
(vosotros/as)	Sois	Estáis	Vais	Dais
(ellos/ellas)	Son	Están	Van	Dan

These are not the only irregular verbs. However, for now these will keep you going! Take the time to practise them before you move onto more irregular verbs. As they say…’slowly slowly catchy monkey!’ Or maybe wiser words… it’s about the quality of your knowledge not just the quantity of your knowledge.

You’ll find lots of interactive practice activities for the Present Tense Irregular Verbs at Simple Spanish Tips.

Feel like you’re drowning in a sea of irregulars?

The best advice I can give you is please don’t try and learn lists and lists of verbs! It’s near impossible!

Learn a few and then pick up the rest as you go. You’ll start to spot patterns and then you’ll just know that a new verb is irregular because it will look so similar to the ones you are more familiar with.

When you are ready for a new present tense challenge you can take a look at Orthographic Changing Irregular Verbs (AKA Spell changing verbs) that I mentioned earlier. However… don’t be afraid to leave them for a little while and come back to them later. There is a lot to take on with the present tense irregulars, so don’t get bogged down on knowing everything about it before you move onto a tense that you might find easier to master… i.e. the Immediate Future tense (AKA the Near future tense).

The Immediate/Near Future Tense is a great tense to learn because it is soooo easy and we use it all the time! So if you are feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the present irregulars, maybe take a break and move onto something else, then come back to them… it won’t hurt!

Did you find this blog useful? 

If so, please take the time to share it with friends, family and on your social media. I’d really appreciate it.

Would you like know what more Simple Spanish Tips has to offer you?

Why not visit the website, where you’ll find simple Spanish grammar explanations and and videos, interactive grammar exercises, vocabulary lists with practice activities.