Present tense AR verbs By now you know enough Spanish to begin learning how to conjugate verbs. Spanish has 3 types of infinitives, those that end in AR, ER, and IR. Every infinitive conjugates into the six persons-- three singular and three plural. In general, students memorize endings for each category and these can be applied to all regular verbs of this type. Before continuing on to the endings of AR verbs, let's have a look at TENSE. The concept of TENSE tells the listener when the action takes place, such as now, later, yesterday, etc. For example, now I walk, later I shall walk, earlier I walked. The way the word "WALK" changes reflects the TENSE. The PRESENT TENSE is taking place right now and conjugates three different ways, for example the verb "to eat". All three conjugations of TO EAT are in the present tense: I eat, I do eat, and I am eating (in general). If you were to place the word "NOW" in front of Each Conjugation, it would still make sense. That is how you know that it should be in the present tense. HABLAR is the prototypical AR verb to start with and the endings for the present tense are as follows: 1st sg: O 2nd sg: AS 3rd sg: A 1st pl. AMOS 2nd pl: ÁIS 3rd pl: AN The general practice is to drop the AR off of the infinitive and add these endings to the root: Habl so that it should look like this: 1st sg: Yo habl + O = hablo 2nd sg: Tú habl = AS= hablas 3rd sg: él, ella, UD. habl+ a=habla 1st pl. nosotros habl+ amos= hablamos 2nd pl: vosotros habl+ áis= habláis 3rd pl: ellos, ellas, uds. habl + an = hablan Remember: There are THREE ways to translate each present tense verb: Hablo= I speak, I do speak, I am speaking. In the exercise that follows, provide the correct conjugation of the verb