Irregular & Stem-Changing Verbs Summary

Stem-changing verbs have a vowel change in the stem of the verb. (The stem is what you have left after you drop the -ar/-er/-ir.) There is a pattern to the changes, so once you know that a verb is stem-changing, you know what to do to it, BUT THERE’S NO WAY TO PREDICT IF A VERB IS STEM-CHANGING OR NOT. When you learn a verb, you have to learn that it’s stem-changing (it’ll have an -ie, an - i, or a -ue in parentheses after it) & REMEMBER that. There are 3 types of stem changing verbs: e  ie, e  i, o  ue querer (e  ie)pedir(e  i) dormir (o  ue) quiero queremos pido pedimos duermo dormimos quieres queréis pides pedís duermes dormís quiere quieren pide piden duerme duermen *Note that there is no change in the nosotros & vosotros forms. *Also: JUGAR is the 1 & only u  ue verb: juegojugamos juegasjugáis juegajuegan

Here are some common stem-changing verbs: e  ie e  i o  ue querer (to want) pedir (to ask for) volver (to return) cerrar (to close) servir (to serve) poder (can) perder (to lose) repetir (to repeat) dormir (to sleep) pensar (to think) seguir (to follow) morir (to die) sentir (to feel) decir (to say, tell) encontrar (to find ) comenzar (to begin) recordar (to preferir (to prefer) remember) empezar (to begin)almorzar (to entender (to understand) have lunch) Sometimes you have more than one “e” or “o” in the stem. Remember that it’s the last vowel in the stem that changes. You’d better know all these!

On the following slides, you will see the ??? irregular present tense verbs learned in Most present tense irregular verbs change only in the first person singular. SER, IR, & OIR are the exceptions: ser iroír soy somos voyvamos oigo oimos eres sois vasvais oyes oís es son vavan oye oyen

All other irregular verbs are irregular only in the 1 st person singular (yo form). ESTAR is slightly more irregular, because it gets accent marks: estoyestamos estásestáis estáestán

There are several verbs that get a -g- in the yo form: poner salir hacer traer pongo ponemos salgo salimos hago hacemos *traigo traemos pones ponéis sales salís haces hacéis traes traéis pone ponen sale salen hace hacen trae traen *Note that, while all the others acquire just a -g-, “traigo” gets an -i- as well. TENER, VENIR, & DECIR also get a -g- in the yo form, but they are stem-changing verbs too: tenervenir decir tengo tenemos vengo venimos digo decimos tienes tenéis vienes venís dices decís tiene tienen viene vienen dice dicen

Other irregular verbs: dar saber doy damos sé sabemos das dais sabes sabéis da dan sabe saben ver conocer veo vemos conozco conocemos ves veis conoces conocéis ve ven conoce conocen

For practice, go to the Spanish 1001 page & do the irregular verb exercises under Homework (chapters 3 & 4).