Lesson 1: Introduction to Spanish Verbs - Conquering Conjugation Fear

If you are just starting out learning Spanish, you might notice that verbs in Spanish work very differently than they do in English. In this lesson, we'll cover some of the big differences between the English and Spanish verb systems and explain why the Spanish verb system can be such a challenge to native English speakers.

In both English and Spanish, verbs have multiple verb forms. A verb form is a variation in a verb's spelling that helps to change its meaning. The process of making these changes is called conjugation. For example, these are the simple forms, or conjugations, of the English verb walk:

walk, walks, walked, walking

We can use these forms in different contexts to talk about the past, the present, and the future. Check it out:

I walked, I walk, I will walk

We use these same forms with other words to convey more information:

I used to walk, I am walking, I am going to walk

And we even use the same forms when talking about other people:

you walk, he walks, we walk, they walk

Some English verbs have bigger spelling changes (for example: eat–ate; break–broke). But there just aren't that many verb form variations in English–usually only about 4 or 5 per verb.

English verbs have only a few forms

The Spanish verb system, on the other hand, has lots of forms for each verb. A single Spanish verb can have over 40 different forms!

Spanish verbs have many more forms than English verbs

Does it seem overwhelming? You're not the only one who thinks so! Our research suggests that learning verb conjugations is one area where Spanish learners tend to struggle the most.

That's the approach we'll take throughout the Spanish Verbs Crash Course. Rather than treating every conjugation as something separate to memorize, we'll build the system piece by piece and show you the patterns that connect it.

VerbMaster helps organize Spanish conjugation into learnable patterns.

Each lesson builds on the last, moving from the basic building blocks of Spanish verbs into the major tenses and moods you'll need to understand the system as a whole.

In VerbMaster, you'll also practice the forms you learn along the way, helping turn these patterns into conjugations you can recognize and use automatically.

Up next, we'll start with the most basic form of any Spanish verb: the infinitive.