• ayudar (to help)
• bailar (to dance)
• buscar (to look for)
• caminar (to walk)
• cantar (to sing)
• cocinar (to cook)
• comprar (to buy)
• descansar (to rest)
• desear (to wish)
• enseñar (to teach)
• escuchar (to listen)
• esquiar (to ski)
• estudiar (to study)
• ganar (to win)
• hablar (to talk)
• llamar (to call)
• llegar (to arrive)
• mandar (to send)
• mirar (to look at)
• nadar (to swim)
• necesitar (to need)
• practicar (to practice)
• preguntar (to ask)
• regresar (to return)
• tomar (to take)
• trabajar (to work)
• usar (to use)
• viajar (to travel)

Conjugation

Regular verbs ending in –AR are conjugated in the present tense by removing the -AR infinitive ending and adding one of the following personal endings:

* Note: This second-person plural form (vosotros) is only used in the variety of Spanish used in Spain.  In other Spanish dialects the third person plural form (ustedes) is used in both formal and informal plural direct-address situations.

Hablar:

(yo) hablo	(nosotros) hablamos
(tú) hablas	(vosotros) habláis*
(él / ella / usted) habla	(ellos / ellas / ustedes) hablan

Basic sentence structure: statements

The basic structure of simple sentences in Spanish is the same as in English: subject – verb – object.

Basic sentence structure: yes-no questions

Either they have the same word order as a simple sentence and are spoken with a rising intonation instead of falling, or the verb and subject are reversed (verb – subject – object).

Note that Spanish does NOT use an auxiliary or helping verb like English (do/does).

• ¿Estudiamos el español? (Do we study / are we studying Spanish?)

Basic sentence structure: negation

Answering affirmatively: say “sí” (yes) and state your answer.

• Sí, estudiamos el español.

Answering negatively: put the word “no” before the verb (subject – no – verb – object). The Spanish word “no” means both “no” and “not”.

• No estudiamos el francés. (We do not study French.)

Modal verbs

Some verbs can have another verb as their object; these are called modal verbs. The same person needs to be doing both actions, and the second verb is *not* conjugated.

• Deseo estudiar un idioma de cada continente. (I want to study one language from each continent.)

Time is constructed using the following structure:

Es la / Son las + (hora) + y / menos + (minutos) + de la mañana / de la tarde / de la noche

¿Qué hora es?

5:00 → Son las cinco en punto. (It’s five o’clock sharp / on the dot.)
3:15 → Son las tres y cuarto. (It’s a quarter past three. – i.e. three-fifteen.)
4:30 → Son las cuatro y media.  (It’s half past four. – i.e. four-thirty.)
1:40 → Son las dos menos veinte.*(It’s twenty to/of two. – i.e. one-forty.)
6:50 → Son diez para las siete.* (It’s ten to seven.—more common in Latin America)
1:00 → Es la una.** (It’s one o’clock.)
12:00 am → Es medianoche / Es la medianoche. (It’s midnight.)
12:00 pm → Es mediodía / Es el mediodía. (It’s noon / midday.)

* Note that once the time passes the 30-minute mark, we generally go up to the next hour and subtract the number of minutes before that hour.

** Son means “they are”, so son las… only works for numbers greater than one. To say “it’s one o’clock”, you have to say Es la una. (or Es la una en punto.)