The structure of the Spanish verbs is not that difficult to comprehend for an English speaking person. Most of the words are either similar of at least close in meaning to that of the words in English, this gives an upstart for people trying to get a hold on Spanish verbs, but are native English speakers themselves. The main difference between the English and the Spanish verb is that the Spanish verb uses two verbs namely indicative and subjunctive. The mood of the speaker does not matter in Spanish and only the type of statement he/she is making.

The Spanish verb is associated with its 47 basic conjugations. For example canter in English means “sing”. So we can have 47 different conjugations for this particular word. One of it is the canto which is in “present indicative” state, cantaron in “simple past” and so on.

The different types of verbs such as present, past, simple past, indicative etc. can be written in a form in which it belongs to the 47 conjugations. This makes the learning of the Spanish verb and grammar easier than it actually is. Once a person starts speaking this language he/she gets accustomed to it in a manner in which these conjugations become natural.

Below mentioned are the three main patterns of endings for Spanish verbs, we have to note that those verbs ending with -ar, -er and -ir are present in the Spanish dictionary.

There are mainly three patterns of endings that can be used for Spanish verbs. These are –ar, -er or –ir, each signifies a different meaning altogether and care has to taken while using them so that they turn out to be accurate.

cantar means “sing” in Spanish, let us look at some of the other forms of expressing it.

canto means I sing
cantas means you sing
cantamos means we sing
cantaís again means you sing

vivir means “to live” in Spanish, let us look at some of the other ways in which we can use this phrase.

Vivo means I live
vives means you live
vivís again means you live

Although this may sound a bit confusing, you would get accustomed once you start speaking Spanish as most of these terms are context based and the skills to speak those correctly can only be developed by speaking the language itself.

There are two ways in which you can address people in Spanish; this is very much like the French language, where there are two ways that are used to address a person. The two forms are the polite form and the familiar form, the former one is used when speaking to people you do not know much and the later is used in places where you know the person whom you are speaking to quite well. In the polite form you usually tend to use singular and in the familiar form you used plural, the informal words that are usually to refer to “you” are tú (singular) and vosotros (plural).

The verb "to be"

There are two dissimilar Spanish verbs that are used as ser and estar, this again depends on the context of the speech, the state of the speech is taken to decide what to use i.e. it is first determined if the state is permanent or temporary as shown in the example below. Ser is used to describe a permanent state, and Estar is used to explain a temporary state or where something is located. There are many irregular verbs in Spanish which explains the reason why Spanish verbs become so difficult for some people to learn.