Can you ask questions in Spanish yet? 

We’re sure you’re aware that to master any language, you can’t rely solely on affirmative sentences. You need to know how to ask questions, though some questions are more important than others. This is especially true for non-native speakers who are just starting out. Knowing the right questions can help you survive self-introductions, and others can get you out of sticky situations.  

The first thing you need to learn, if you haven’t yet, are Spanish question words. Knowing these words, as well as the most common questions in Spanish, you can start asking your own questions! You can find a list of Spanish question words in our article about pronouns.

Now, onto our list of Spanish questions and answers for beginners!

Table of Contents

1. ¿Cómo te llamas? – “What’s your name?”
2. ¿De dónde eres? – “Where are you from?”
3. ¿Hablas español? – “Do you speak Spanish?”
4. ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas estudiando español? – “How long have you been studying Spanish?”
5. ¿Alguna vez has estado en España? – “Have you ever been in Spain?”
6. ¿Cómo es…? – “How is…?”
7. ¿Te gusta la comida española? – “Do you like Spanish food?”
8. ¿Qué estás haciendo? – “What are you doing?”
9. ¿Qué te pasa? – “What’s wrong?”
10. ¿Cuánto cuesta? – “How much is it?”
11. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Master Spanish

1. ¿Cómo te llamas? – “What’s your name?”

Our first question is one that you’ve probably heard before. The literal translation of this question would be something like “How are you called?” But while that might sound weird, you probably realize that this is just the classic question we ask to learn someone’s name. This question is very important, and usually one of the first ones you learn when you start studying Spanish.

Other Ways of Asking this Question

There’s another way to ask the same question, though it’s not as popular as the one above:

¿Cuál es tu nombre? 

This one doesn’t have a strange literal translation. Instead, it just means “Which is your name?” which makes it easier to explain, doesn’t it? Because it’s a near-literal translation of the English question, you might be tempted to use this one instead of ¿Cómo te llamas? But remember that the first one we showed you is more common, so you’ll sound more natural if you use that one.

How to Answer this Question

There are a few different ways of answering this question, and even though some are longer than others, they’re all equally valid. In this case, there’s no one answer that’s most common, except for maybe the last one, which is also the easiest. It’s your lucky day!

Example: Me llamo Francisco. 
Translation: “My name is Francisco.”

Example: Soy Ana.
Translation: “I’m Ana.”

Example: Juan.
Translation: “Juan.”

Something else you might find useful is how to follow your answer after someone has asked you your name. You can add ¿Y tú? (“And you?”) at the end if you would also like to know their name. 

If you’re curious about Spanish names, here’s an article from late 2018 that lists some common names in Spain. 

2. ¿De dónde eres? – “Where are you from?”

Here’s another one of the most basic Spanish questions that we commonly use when meeting someone for the first time.

Other Ways of Asking this Question

There’s another common way of asking this question, which we use in English as well.

Example: ¿De dónde vienes?
Translation: “Where do you come from?”

How to Answer this Question
Once again, there are different, equally valid answers we can give to a question like this. You can refer to your nationality or to your home country.

Example: Soy húngaro. 
Translation: “I am Hungarian.”

Example: Soy de Hungría.
Translation: “I am from Hungary.”

Example: Vengo de Hungría.
Translation: “I come from Hungary.”

3. ¿Hablas español? – “Do you speak Spanish?”

This is a question that you might be asked, or that you might ask, someday. Of course, you can change it to ask about any other language. For example, if you’re in Spain and you’re talking to someone in Spanish, but you’re not feeling too comfortable yet, you could ask them: ¿Hablas inglés? (“Do you speak English?”) and hope they say yes!

How to Answer this Question

There are a few different answers you could give someone who asks you this question.

There are the simple answers, which you probably already know:

Example: Sí.
Translation: “Yes.”

Example: No.
Translation: “No.”

There’s another simple alternative to “yes” or “no” in case you didn’t understand the question in the first place (which we could say is really another way of telling them you’re not too fluent yet):

Example: ¿Qué?
Translation: “What?”

And a few more elaborate answers:

Example: Un poco. / Un poquito.
Translation: “A bit.” / “A little bit.”

Example: Hablo [un poco] de español.
Translation: “I speak [a bit of] Spanish.”

4. ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas estudiando español? – “How long have you been studying Spanish?”

When you meet someone from Spain and tell them you study Spanish, they might ask how long you’ve been doing that for. 

How to Answer this Question

The answer you give (or that you’re given) will obviously vary, but you have two simple options. One is to just say the short answer:

Example: Un año.
Translation: “One year.”

While this will work just fine, we do have a slightly longer (no panicking, it’s just one extra word!) reply:

Example: Llevo tres meses.
Translation: “[I have been] for three months.”

Notice that both the question and the “long” answer use the verb llevar. This verb usually means “to bring,” but it’s also used to talk about the amount of time you’ve been doing something for. Another example using this verb would be: Llevo dos años viviendo en Barcelona. (“I’ve been living in Barcelona for two years.”)

5. ¿Alguna vez has estado en España? – “Have you ever been in Spain?”

Following are some useful questions and answers for Spanish-learners who are traveling to a Spanish-speaking country or chatting with someone who’s familiar with Spain.

Other Ways of Asking this Question

Example: ¿Has ido alguna vez a España?
Translation: “Have you ever gone to Spain?”

Example: ¿Has estado en España?
Translation: “Have you been in Spain?”

Example: ¿Alguna vez has visitado España?
Translation: “Have you ever visited Spain?”

Or, a slight variation:

Example: ¿Es la primera vez que vienes a España?
Translation: “Is this the first time you’ve come to Spain?”

How to Answer this Question

This is another yes-or-no question, so we have a couple of obvious answers. However, there are a few more options, including longer answers, that you might like to use if you’re feeling confident enough.

Example: No, nunca he estado.
Translation: “No, I’ve never been there.”

Example: He estado en España dos veces.
Translation: “I’ve been in Spain twice.”

6. ¿Cómo es…? – “How is…?”

This is a more open-ended question that you can alter based on your inquiry; it’s used to ask someone to describe something. In English, the translation will sometimes be something more like: “What’s ___ like?” Here are some examples:

Example: ¿Cómo es Granada en invierno?
Translation: “How is Granada in the winter?”

Example: ¿Cómo es el interior de una pelota?
Translation: “What is the inside of a ball like?”

How to Answer this Question

Because there are so many different questions one could ask, there are even more answers one could give. An example would be to use an adjective, but other times, the question might require a longer explanation.

Example: ¡Es maravilloso!
Translation: “It’s wonderful!”

7. ¿Te gusta la comida española? – “Do you like Spanish food?”

Spaniards are very, very proud of their cuisine. That means that if you’re visiting Spain (or have visited in the past), and you meet someone Spanish, it’s quite likely that they’ll ask you this. In case you’re wondering, they’re expecting you to tell them you love it.

Other Ways of Asking this Question

Here’s another common way to ask this question:

Example: ¿Qué te parece la comida española?
Translation: “What do you think about Spanish food?”

How to Answer this Question

Example: ¡Me encanta! 
Translation: “I love it!”

Example: Me gusta mucho.
Translation: “I like it very much.”

We hope you never use it to answer this question, but we thought we should probably teach you how to say you don’t like it.

Example: No me gusta [nada].
Translation: “I don’t like it [at all].”

8. ¿Qué estás haciendo? – “What are you doing?”

This question is pretty clear, we think! It can be asked in different contexts and with different intentions, but in any case, we understand it.

Other Ways of Asking this Question

We have another similar way of asking this question:

Example: ¿Qué haces?
Translation: “What do you do?”

This is the literal translation, but it may also refer to what one is doing at the moment of asking the question.

How to Answer this Question

Obviously, there are many ways of answering this question, because there are many things you could be doing.

Example: Estoy limpiando mi habitación.
Translation: “I’m cleaning up my room.”

We don’t want to say anything, but in case you ever need it, we thought we’d give you the following example:

Example: No es lo que parece.
Translation: “It’s not what it looks like.”

9. ¿Qué te pasa? – “What’s wrong?”

Sometimes you might feel like someone is down or struggling. You need to know the right question to ask in order to help them out.

Other Ways of Asking this Question

While this version of the question doesn’t have exactly the same meaning, you could still ask it in a similar situation:

Example: ¿Estás bien?
Translation: “Are you okay?”

How to Answer this Question

You never know what reply you’re going to get, but there are a few answers you’re likely to hear. It’s also possible that the person you ask won’t want to give you a direct answer:

Example: Nada. 
Translation: “Nothing.”

Or maybe they’ll reply with an adjective, by telling you an emotion they’re feeling.

Example: Estoy enfadado/a. 
Translation: “I’m angry.”

Example: Estoy triste.
Translation: “I’m sad.”

Perhaps they’ll really explain the reason something’s wrong:

Example: Mi hermana está muy enferma.
Translation: “My sister is very sick.”

10. ¿Cuánto cuesta? – “How much is it?”

If you want to go shopping in a Spanish-speaking country, but you can’t find the price tag, it will be useful to know these simple Spanish questions and answers.

Other Ways of Asking this Question

Example: ¿Cuánto es? 
Translation: “How much is it?”

How to Answer this Question

Example: Cuesta 400 €.
Translation: “It costs 400 €.”

Example: Son 3 €. 
Translation: “It’s 3 €.”

11. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Master Spanish

We hope you found these common Spanish questions and answers useful, and that they inspire you to ask more questions and learn more in order to become fluent in Spanish. 

Are there any questions we missed? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll do our best to help you out! 

Remember there’s a lot more that you can learn at SpanishPod101.com. Check out our great variety of lessons, our free vocabulary lists, and much more.

Often, when you start learning a new language, you’re not really sure how to begin. Random words? Grammar? Basic sentences, maybe? While perhaps memorizing sentences isn’t what you’re looking for when you decide to begin studying, the truth is that these basic Spanish sentence patterns will actually prove very useful. When you’re completely lost at the beginning of your language-learning journey, knowing them will help you have a precise idea of how to have a basic yet meaningful conversation.

If you memorize these ten most basic and useful Spanish sentence structures, you’ll be able to generate hundreds of natural sentences and converse with ease and confidence. We promise that you’ll use most of these sentence patterns every time you have a conversation in Spanish!

Table of Contents

1. Linking Nouns
2. Using Adjectives to Describe Things
3. Expressing “Want”
4. Expressing “Need”
5. Expressing “Like”
6. Politely Asking Someone to Do Something
7. Asking for Permission
8. Asking for Information About Something
9. Asking About Time
10. Asking About Location or Position
11. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Master Spanish

1. Linking Nouns

We thought that showing you how to link nouns would be a good way to start. This is a really basic pattern that we use all the time. In Spanish, we always use the verb ser (“to be”) for this pattern:

Example: Juan es mi hermano.
Translation: “Juan is my brother.”

Example: Mi hermano es taxista.
Translation: “My brother is a taxi driver.”

Example: Ese reloj fue un regalo de mi mujer.
Translation: “That watch was a present from my wife.”

2. Using Adjectives to Describe Things

In English, to create a basic sentence using adjectives, you only need one verb: the verb “to be.” Of course, there are other verbs you could use to make complex sentences, but because we’re only looking at easy patterns, we’ll ignore them for now. 

Just like we’ve mentioned in other articles and lessons at SpanishPod101.com, in Spanish, there are two different verbs that are equivalent to the verb “to be” in English. These are ser and estar. When using adjectives, it’s really important to know the difference between these two, so we’ll quickly remind you of their specific meanings. Let’s look at the following examples:

Example: Eres preciosa.
Translation: “You’re gorgeous.”

Example: Estás preciosa.
Translation: “You look gorgeous.”

The sentences look very similar in Spanish, but look at the English translations! Ser and estar are both irregular verbs, so you might be a little bit confused about which verb is which. But we’re sure you can already start to see the difference between them. 

In the first example, Eres preciosa, we use the verb ser, which refers to something permanent or something that’s true for a very long period of time. Whoever uses this sentence is telling a girl that she is gorgeous, but not just in that moment. It doesn’t mean she’s wearing, for example, a nice dress (even though she might be)! It means that she is always gorgeous. 

However, you might have noticed that we translated the second example, Estás preciosa, as “You look gorgeous.” Even though estar, which is the verb we used, also means “to be,” it takes away the sense of permanence that we saw in the previous example. So when someone uses this sentence in Spanish, they’re implying that the girl looks good in the clothes or makeup she’s wearing. This doesn’t necessarily mean that she doesn’t look good at other times; in this case, it might just mean that she’s exceptionally beautiful in that moment. 

Example: Está buenísimo.
Translation: “It’s amazing.”

Example: La película que vimos anoche era divertidísima.
Translation: “The movie we watched last night was hilarious.”

3. Expressing “Want”

Another important Spanish sentence for beginners is that which lets you tell someone you want something (or want to do something). The verb we use in Spanish is querer, which means both “to want” and “to love.” 

The structure is quite simple, and it’s similar to English. Let’s look at a few examples:

Example: Quiero esto.
Translation: “I want this.”

In this first example, the object of the sentence—the thing that is wanted—is the pronoun “this,” so it’s a noun phrase. This sentence doesn’t specify what we’re talking about, but we assume that whoever uses this sentence is pointing at something. In any case, neither Spanish nor English require a preposition, or any other kind of particle, before the thing that is wanted.

The following examples, however, use a verb phrase instead:

Example: Quiero preguntarte algo.
Translation: “I want to ask you something.”

Example: Quiero ser una buena persona.
Translation: “I want to be a good person.”

As you might have noticed in these sentences, while English does need the preposition “to,” Spanish doesn’t require anything between the verb querer and the next verb. Something you must always remember, however, is that the second verb always needs to be in its infinitive form, which, as you might remember from our previous article on conjugations, is the one we find in a dictionary.

4. Expressing “Need”

There are two basic ways of expressing “need” in Spanish, and they both have equivalents in English, so they are pretty easy to translate. The verb necesitar means “to need (to)” and the verb phrase tener que is equivalent to “to have to” in English. 

In Spanish, just like in English, we can use necesitar (“to need [to]”) whenever we need something, or need to do something. But in the case of tener que (“to have to”) it only works when we need to do something; in other words, there has to be a verb right after. This verb, just like we explained happens when expressing “want,” needs to be in its infinitive form.

First of all, we’ll look at a simple example:

Example: Necesito un bolígrafo.
Translation: “I need a pen.”

That’s simple, right? It’s the same structure as in English: “I need” + article + noun. Let’s keep going.

Example: Necesito comprar pan.
Translation: “I need to buy bread.”

Example: Tengo que practicar.
Translation: “I have to practice.”

Example: Me tengo que ir.
Translation: “I have to go.”

Example: Tengo que ir al baño.
Translation: “I have to go to the bathroom.”

There are only a few things you need to remember. We’ve already mentioned a couple of them: when we can use each of these verbs and that the next verb always needs to be in its infinitive form. 

Something else you need to remember is that when we use the verb necesitar, we can simply add the next verb afterwards. But when using the other verb, tener que, always use the conjunction que before the next verb. 

5. Expressing “Like”

We’re sure you saw this coming. Expressing whether you like something or not is quite common in basic conversations, so it’s a pattern that you should definitely learn. It’s not hard to learn at all, but compared to other Spanish sentence patterns, it is a bit strange. You’ll need to remember that it always requires a personal pronoun in front of the verb. Our article about pronouns might help you refresh your memory.

This pronoun isn’t the subject of the sentence, but when translated into English, it does become the subject. That sounds weird, right? Well, this is because this structure can be considered an equivalent of a passive sentence. Gustar doesn’t exactly mean “to like.” It actually means something along the lines of “to be liked.”

If you’re familiar with Spanish conjugations, you might notice that the verb in the first example below, gustas, isn’t in the first person, but in the second person. This is because the person that is liked is “you,” so “you” is the real subject in this sentence. 

Example: Me gustas.
Translation: “I like you.”

In the second example, however, we changed the person who is liked to a third-person subject: Carla. Even though, in English, both the subject and the verb stay the same as in the first example (“I like”), the verb in Spanish changes to me gusta, because now the subject is Carla.

Example: Me gusta Carla.
Translation: “I like Carla.”

Example: Me gusta cocinar.
Translation: “I like cooking.”

In the third example we just saw, the verb is in the third person, and in this case, the subject is not a person, but an action. The literal translation would be “Cooking is liked by me.”

Example: Me gusta ver el atardecer en la playa.
Translation: “I like watching the sunset at the beach.”

Example: No me gustan los plátanos.
Translation: “I don’t like bananas.”

Finally, the last two examples were mostly for you to see a couple more sentences that use the same structure. The last one is just another example of how los plátanos is the actual subject in the sentence, because, just like the verb, it’s in the plural.

6. Politely Asking Someone to Do Something

It might be useful to learn how to ask people to do things politely. To begin with, you might like to know the word for “please” in Spanish. We actually use two words for this: por favor. Just like in English, por favor can be either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence.

Example: Por favor, siéntate.
Translation: “Please, sit down.”

Example: Escúchame, por favor.
Translation: “Listen to me, please.”

Example: Por favor, ponte en la cola.
Translation: “Please, get in line.”

You must know that being polite isn’t all about using the word “please.” “Thank you” is another expression that might come in handy, so why not take a look at our article on how to say “thank you” in Spanish? 

7. Asking for Permission

The last few patterns we’re going to see today are all going to be different kinds of questions in Spanish. The first question pattern is how to ask for permission. In Spanish, the verb you need to know to ask for permission is poder (“can”), which we learned in our previous article about verbs. You might be glad to know that we don’t have different verbs for “can” and “may,” so you don’t need to worry about using the right verb.

All you need to know is that, whenever you need to start a question with “Can I…?” or “May I…?” you can start it with ¿Puedo…? followed by a verb in its infinitive form, and anything else you might need. And if you need to ask someone if they can do something for you, you can ask them: ¿Me puedes…? Once again, this will always be followed by a verb in its infinitive form.

Example: ¿Puedo pasar?
Translation: “May I come in?”

Example: ¿Me puedes dar tu número de móvil?
Translation: “Can you give me your phone number?”

Example: Por favor, ¿me puedes pasar la sal?
Translation: “Please, can you pass me the salt?”

Example: ¿Le puedes dar esto a tu hermana?
Translation: “Can you give this to your sister?”

We decided to include the last question, which is actually asking for a favor for someone else. Instead of using the pronoun me, like in the previous two sentences, we use the pronoun le, which in this case means “to her,” because it’s referring to this person’s sister.

8. Asking for Information About Something

We’re sure you agree with us about the importance of being able to ask for information about things. There are so many things we could ask about, but we chose to give you only three examples. 

The first example is something that we all have to ask sometimes. You’ll probably need it when you visit a Spanish-speaking country for the first time, encounter something new (such as food, or even objects), or don’t understand what someone said during a conversation in Spanish. This is a question with many uses that we’re sure you’ll appreciate.

Example: ¿Qué es eso?
Translation: “What is that?”

There’s no doubt that you’ll also find the following question very useful.

Example: ¿Cómo te llamas?
Translation: “What is your name?”

And finally, we’ve included a more complicated question so that you see how a longer sentence is built. Because we’re only learning basic patterns, don’t worry too much about it for now! All you need to know for now is the structure of the sentence, which is actually the exact same structure as the sentence in English.

Example: ¿Cuál es el plato que comimos la última vez?
Translation: “Which is the dish we ate the last time?”

9. Asking About Time

Don’t give up yet, we’re almost done here! The next question patterns we’ll learn are those related to time. Here, there’s one interrogative pronoun you should always remember, which is cuándo, and it means “when.”

Example: ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?
Translation: “When is your birthday?”

Example: ¿Cuándo es la reunión?
Translation: “When is the meeting?”

Example: ¿A qué hora llega tu vuelo?
Translation: “What time does your flight arrive?”

Cuándo will always be helpful when you need to know when something is. However, sometimes you might need to be a little bit more specific, like in the last example we just saw. When you need to know what time something is, use the expression ¿A qué hora…? Notice that we always need the preposition a in this expression, but when we want to ask what year or what day something is, we don’t need any preposition. Instead, it will be something like this:

Example: ¿Qué día es el examen?
Translation: “What day is the exam?”

10. Asking About Location or Position

Finally, our last question pattern is for asking about location. There’s one word you must remember, which is dónde, the word for “where.”

Whenever you need to ask where something or someone is, you can just ask ¿Dónde está…? (“Where is…?”). Let’s see a couple of examples:

Example: ¿Dónde está el baño?
Translation: “Where is the bathroom?”

Example: ¿Dónde está el ascensor?
Translation: “Where is the elevator?”

That’s pretty easy to remember, isn’t it? Well, it does get a little bit harder when we want to ask something else, because we might need to add prepositions to this word, just like what happened in the previous section.

Example: ¿De dónde eres?
Translation: “Where are you from?”

11. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Master Spanish

With these basic Spanish sentence patterns, you’ll be able to have all sorts of basic conversations about different topics. Of course, this won’t magically make you fluent in Spanish, but it will help you get there. Luckily, at SpanishPod101.com, we have everything you’ll ever need to learn Spanish. For example, our lesson on how to greet people correctly. 

Learn a new word every day with our Free Word of the Day, or all the vocabulary you might need in our vocabulary lists.

In the meantime, let us know in the comments if you learned anything new today. Are there any sentence patterns we didn’t cover that you need to know? We look forward to hearing from you!

Can you spot adverbs in a novel? If your answer is no, don’t be embarrassed. We sometimes forget what adverbs do in a sentence—you may not even remember what “adverb” actually means.  

When learning a second language, it’s normal to forget this type of information. 

Spanish adverbs aren’t that different from those in English, but there are a few tricks about how to identify them and where to put them in a sentence. In this article, we’ll teach you all about Spanish adverbs, and we’ll also provide an excellent list of 100 Spanish adverbs and their meanings.

Table of Contents

1. What are Spanish Adverbs?
2. How Do You Form an Adverb in Spanish?
3. The 100 Most Useful Spanish Adverbs
4. Conclusion

1. What are Spanish Adverbs?

Spanish adverbs are a very important part of your Spanish learning. They help you make a point clear, explain when something happened, and show how something was done, which are crucial elements when communicating in any language. 

Unlike Spanish nouns, Spanish adverbs have no gender, number, or person. But, occasionally, you can add a diminutive with a suffix.

• Pronto >> Prontito >> “Very soon”
• Poco >> Poquito >> “A little bit”
• Cerca >> Cerquita >> “Very close”
• Despacio >> Despacito  >> “Very slowly”

You can also add augmentative suffixes, such as:

• Lejos >> Lejísimos  >> “Extremely far”
• Despacio >> Despacísimo >> “Extremely slowly”

The main characteristic of Spanish adverbs is that they complement the point you’re trying to make. They represent the circumstances of time, place, and mode in which an action occurs. Let’s see how.

2. How Do You Form an Adverb in Spanish?

Spanish adverbs modify or go with:

• Verbs: Corre rápidamente. (“Run quickly.”)
• Adjectives: Más lento. (“Slower.”) You can spot these easily because they go before the adjective.
• Other adverbs: Bastante lejos. (“Pretty far.”)

You can get a Spanish adverb from an adjective by adding the ending -mente. Here are a few examples of Spanish adverbs ending in -mente, and how they’re formed:

• General (“General”) >> Generalmente (“Generally”)
• Ocasional (“Occasional”) >> Ocasionalmente (“Occasionally”)
• Frecuente (“Frequent”) >> Frecuentemente (“Frequently”)
• Suave (“Soft”) >> Suavemente (“Softly”)
• Rápido (“Quick”) >> Rápidamente (“Quickly”)

This is very common, and it’s very easy to understand Spanish adverbs. There’s a general rule attached to this kind of adverb, and you can see that the same rule applies to the English language, where you just add the suffix “-ly” to the adjectives. 

One more thing you need to keep in mind is that if you want to use two adverbs with the suffix -mente in the same sentence, the first one will be used as an adjective and the second one will have the -mente suffix. 

For example:

• Hice el Camino de Santiago lenta y tranquilamente.
  “I did the Camino de Santiago slowly and calmly.”

• Me dijo que me callara dulce y suavemente.
  “She told me to shut up sweetly and softly.”

3. The 100 Most Useful Spanish Adverbs

In the following sections, you can find all of the most common Spanish adverbs for describing time, place, manner, degree, and more! 

→Keep in mind that for additional Spanish adverbs, SpanishPod101.com has a brief vocabulary list you can check out!

1- Spanish Adverbs of Time

Spanish adverbs of time will help you provide information about when, how often, or for how long something happens. Here’s a short Spanish adverbs list, with examples of how each one is used.

• Antes (“Before”)

Antes de comer aceitunas prefiero patatas fritas.
“Before eating olives, I’d prefer chips.”

• Después (“After”)

Después de las cinco no suelo comer nada.
“After five p.m., I don’t usually eat.”

• Hoy (“Today”)

Hoy es el día de la madre.
“Today is Mother’s Day.”

• Mañana (“Tomorrow”)

Mañana tengo clase de ballet.
“I have ballet class tomorrow.”

• Anoche (“Last night”)

Anoche soñé con mi padre.
“I dreamed about my father last night.”

• Anteanoche (“The night before yesterday”)

Antenoche no pude dormir.
“I could not sleep the night before yesterday.”

• Ayer (“Yesterday”)

Ayer fue el cumpleaños de mi hermano.
“It was my brother’s birthday yesterday.”

• Anteayer (“The day before yesterday”)

Anteayer comí pasta.
“I had pasta the day before yesterday.”

• Ya (“Already”)

Ya llegaron los pedidos pendientes.
“The pending orders have already arrived.”

• Siempre (“Always”)

Siempre suelo quedarme dormida viendo la tele.
“I always fall asleep watching TV.”

• Todavía (“Yet”)

Todavía no me han llegado los pedidos.
“My orders haven’t arrived yet.”

• Ahora (“Now”)

Ahora voy al gimnasio.
“I am going to the gym now.”

• Tarde (“Late”)

Maite siempre llega media hora tarde cuando quedamos.
“Maite always arrives half an hour late when we meet.”

• Luego (“Later”)

¿Nos vemos luego?
“Will I see you later?”

• Mientras (“While”)

Corrió hacia su coche mientras llovía.
“He ran toward his car while it was raining.”

• Recién (“Freshly”)

¡No pases! El suelo está recién fregado.
“Do not pass over here! The floor is freshly scrubbed.”

Although in English, adverbs of frequency and adverbs of time are considered separate categories, in Spanish, they fall under the same category. 

The following Spanish adverbs of frequency will help you describe how frequently you do something. Whether you go to the gym very often (Voy a gimnasio a menudo) or everyday (Voy al gimnasio todos los días), you can tell people about it using these adverbs.

Once you’re through with this list, tell us how often you usually check up on our blog! 

• Semanalmente (“Weekly”)

Suelo ir a la piscina semanalmente.
“I usually go to the pool weekly.”

• Siempre (“Always”)

Siempre voy al gimnasio los lunes.
“I always go to the gym on Mondays.”

• Mucho (“A lot”)

Yo voy mucho al gimnasio.
“I go to the gym a lot.”

• Actualmente (“Currently”)

Actualmente vivo del alquiler de mi casa.
“Currently, I live renting my house.”

• Frecuentemente (“Frequently”)

Mi perro se pierde frecuentemente.
“My dog gets lost frequently.”

• Recientemente (“Recently”)

He perdido a mi perro recientemente.
“I have lost my dog recently.”

• Diariamente (“Daily”)

Suelo meditar diariamente.
“I meditate daily.”

• Nunca (“Never”)

Nunca me llegan las cosas a tiempo.
“I never get my things on time.”

• Raramente (“Rarely”)

Raramente me cuestiono sobre la vida.
“I rarely ask myself about life.”

•  Usualmente (“Usually”)

Usualmente no bebo alcohol.
“I do not usually drink alcohol.”

• Normalmente (“Normally”)

Normalmente mi padre tiene pan en casa.
“Normally, my dad has bread at home.”

• Todo el tiempo (“All the time”)

Mi pareja suele quejarse todo el tiempo cuando ve la tele.
“My partner complains all the time while he watches TV.”

• De vez en cuando (“From time to time”)

Suelo ir a jugar baloncesto de vez en cuando con mis amigas.
“I play basketball from time to time with my girlfriends.”

• Anualmente (“Annually”)

Mi gato tiene sus vacunas anualmente.
“My cat has his vaccines annually.”

• A veces (“Sometimes”)

A veces salgo a patinar por el paseo marítimo.
“Sometimes I go roller skating along the seaside.”

• Poco (“A little”)

Salgo muy poco de fiesta.
“I go out very little.”

• Apenas (“Hardly”)

Apenas puedo ir al teatro.
“I hardly ever go to the theater.”

• Jamás (“Never”)

Jamás llego tarde a mis clases de ballet.
“I am never late to my ballet lessons.”

2- Spanish Adverbs of Place

Where is your phone? Is it here? Did you lose your glasses? Are they close or far away? These useful Spanish adverbs will help you answer questions about where things are. You should learn them because they’re very common and are used in everyday Spanish. 

• Aquí (“Here”)

Aquí en España hay muchos extranjeros.
“Here in Spain, there are many foreigners.”

• Allí (“There”)

Allí donde está Luis estudiando hay cursos para ti también.
“There, where Luis is studying, there are courses for you as well.”

• Cerca (“Near”)

La biblioteca está cerca de mi casa.
“The library is near my place.”

• Delante (“In front of”)

Hay un banco delante del gimnasio.
“There is a bank in front of my gym.”

• Acá (“Here”)

Vamos a comer acá en mi casa.
“We are going to eat here at home.”

• Allá (“There,” “Over there”)

El supermercado está allá.
“The supermarket is over there.”

• Lejos (“Far”)

Vivo lejos de la estación de bus.
“I live far from the bus station.”

• Detrás (“Behind”)

Hay una panadería detrás de mi casa.
“There is a bakery behind my place.”

• Encima (“Above”)

Juan vive encima de la casa de su padre.
“Juan lives above his father’s house.”

• Dentro (“Inside”)

Dentro del gimnasio hay aparcamiento disponible.
“There is parking available inside the gym.”

• Arriba (“Upstairs”)

Esta casa es inusual porque la cocina está arriba.
“This house is unusual because the kitchen is upstairs.”

• Adentro (“Inside”)

Adentro de la nevera están las cervezas.
“There are beers inside the fridge.”

• Debajo (“Below”)

Debajo de los libros está mi agenda.
“My diary is below the books.”

• Fuera (“Outside”)

Fuera del centro comercial hay una farmacia.
“Outside the shopping center, there is a pharmacy.”

• Atrás (“At the back”)

Atrás de la farmacia hay un hotel.
“At the back of the hotel, there is a pharmacy.”

• Abajo (“Down”)

Abajo tienes a Carmen esperándote.
“You have Carmen waiting for you down there.”

• Al lado (“Next to”)

Encontrarás las instrucciones al lado de la caja.
“You’ll find the manual next to the box.”

3- Spanish Adverbs of Manner

Here, you’ll learn how to use adverbs in Spanish to answer questions about how something is being done. Check out this Spanish adverbs list:

• Bien (“Well”)

Juan Luis canta bien.
“Juan Luis sings well.”

• Mejor (“Better”)

Jose canta mejor que Luisa.
“Jose sings better than Luisa.”

• Cuidadosamente (“Carefully”)

Susana siempre camina cuidadosamente.
“Susana always walks carefully.”

• Rápido (“Quickly”)

En avión llegas más rápido.
“By plane, you arrive more quickly.”

• Claramente (“Clearly”)

Santiago habla claramente.
“Santiago speaks clearly.”

• Mal (“Bad”)

Esta comida puede oler mal.
“This food may smell bad.”

• Peor (“Worse”)

Si no estudias para el examen será peor.
“If you don’t study for the exam, it will be worse.”

• Despacio (“Slowly”)

Trata de conducir despacio.
“Try to drive slowly.”

• Inteligentemente (“Intelligently”)

Habla con tu jefe inteligentemente.
“You have to speak to your boss intelligently.”

• Voluntariamente (“Voluntarily”)

Jesús ha dejado la empresa voluntariamente.
“Jesús has left the company voluntarily.”

• Fácilmente (“Easily”)

Mike ha pasado su examen práctico fácilmente.
“Mike has passed his practice exam easily.”

• Dulcemente (“Sweetly”)

María cantó dulcemente.
“Maria sang sweetly.”

• Seriamente (“Seriously”)

Debes tomarte tus estudios seriamente.
“You should take your studies seriously.”

• Así (“This way”)

Es así como tienes que hacer los ejercicios.
“You should do the exercises this way.”

4- Spanish Adverbs of Degree

These Spanish adverbs of degree (also called Spanish adverbs of quantity), will help you answer questions about how much or to what degree something is done. They also add information to adjectives as well. 

Let’s show you how with this Spanish adverbs list.

• Muy (“Very”)

La clase de ciclismo es muy temprano para mi.
“Cycling class is very early for me.”

• Mucho (“Very much”)

Me gusta mucho el cine.
“I like the cinema very much.”

• Demasiado (“Too much”)

Me gusta demasiado el chocolate.
“I like chocolate too much.”

• Un poco (“A little”)

Me gusta la comida picante un poco.
“I like spicy food a little.”

• Mucho más (“A lot more”)

Me gusta mucho más la comida tailandesa.
“I like Thai food a lot more.”

• Bastante (“Quite”)

Mi hermano canta bastante bien.
“My brother sings quite well.”

• Nada (“At all”)

No me gusta nada la música clásica.
“I don’t like classical music at all.”

• Menos (“Less”)

Las manzanas cuestan menos en el otro supermercado.
“Apples cost less in the other supermarket.”

• Tanto (“So long,” “So much”)

No puedo esperar tanto por mi licencia de conducir.
“I can’t wait so much for my driver’s license.”

• Algo; Un poco (“Some”)

Tatiana sabe un poco de Francés.
“Tatiana knows some French.”

5- Spanish Adverbs of Affirmation

Spanish adverbs of affirmation reinforce a statement. These Spanish adverbs also indicate that the action of the verb is fulfilled, or is intended to be fulfilled.

• Sí (“Yes”)

Sí, nos vemos a las siete.
“Yes, we’ll meet at seven.”

• Seguramente (“Probably”)

Seguramente fue Juan el que más corrió.
“Juan was probably the one who ran the most.”

• Obviamente (“Obviously”)

Obviamente tendrá repercusiones en su vida laboral.
“Obviously, there will be consequences in his working life.”

• Exacto (“Correct,” “Right”)

Exacto, seremos 20 personas para la reserva.
“Correct, we will be 20 people for the reservation.”

• Claro (“Right”)

Claro, tienes que estudiar una carrera antes de hacer un máster.
“Right, you have to study for a Bachelor’s Degree before you take a Master’s Degree.”

• Cierto (“Certainly”)

Ciertamente, los resultados de este mes han sido muy exitosos.
“Certainly, this month’s results have been very successful.”

• Efectivamente (“Indeed,” “Effectively”)

Efectivamente, fue un gran día.
“It was a great day indeed.”

6- Spanish Adverbs of Negation

We all know the adverbs of negation. It’s said that one of the first words that a baby learns is “no,” because people use it all the time. 

• No (“No”)

No tengo ya la casa del campo.
“No, I don’t have the country house yet.”

• En absoluto (“Not at all”)

He aparcado bien, así que no estoy en absoluto preocupada por el coche.
“I parked well, so I’m not at all worried about my car.”

• Jamás (“Ever”)

Jamás soporté a tu hermano.
“I could never stand your brother.”

• Nunca (“Never”)

Nunca olvidaré nuestro primer beso.
“I’ll never forget our first kiss.”

• Tampoco (“Either,” “Neither”)

Nosotros tampoco sabemos la fecha del vuelo.
“We don’t know the flight’s date either.”

7- Spanish Adverbs of Doubt

These basic Spanish adverbs denote insecurity or uncertainty, so you can use them when you’re not sure about something. 

• A lo mejor (“Perhaps,” “Maybe”)

A lo mejor comemos en casa de mis padres el domingo.
“Maybe we will have lunch at my parents’ house on Sunday.”

• Quizá (“Perhaps,” “Maybe”)

Quizá se equivocaron al hacer la cuenta.
“Maybe they were wrong when they prepared the bill.”

• Tal vez (“Perhaps,” “Maybe”)

Espero que tal vez muy pronto podamos cambiar el futuro.
“I hope that maybe soon, we can change the future.”

• Posiblemente (“Possibly”)

Sobrepasan posiblemente el número de alumnos disponibles.
“They possibly exceed the available number of students.”

8- Spanish Exclamatory and Interrogative Adverbs 

As you likely guessed, Spanish interrogative adverbs are used to ask questions, and exclamatory adverbs are used in exclamatory sentences. These are very special and common, used at the beginning of a sentence. 

Keep in mind that you have to distinguish these from the relative adverbs. How can you do that? If a word has the accent mark, it’s interrogative or exclamatory; if not, it’s a relative adverb. 

• Cuándo (“When”)

¿Cuándo nació tu hijo?
“When was your son born?”

• Dónde (“Where?”)

¿Dónde está la cafetera?
“Where is the coffee maker?”

• Cómo (“How”)

¡Cómo está de rica esta tarta!
“How good is this cake!”

• Por qué (“Why”)

¿Por qué tienes sueño?
“Why are you sleepy?”

• Cuánto (“How much,” “How many”)

¿Cuántos coches tienes?
“How many cars do you have?”

• A dónde (“Where”)

¿A dónde fuiste con Paula?
“Where did you go with Paula?”

9- Spanish Relative Adverbs

Spanish relative adverbs are one of the most important types on our Spanish adverb list. These are almost the same as some of the words in the previous section, but they don’t have the accent marks. They add circumstantial information to the verb, and they can talk about time, manner, or place. 

For example:

• Donde (“Where”)

Este es el chalet donde vivo.
“This is the house where I live.”

• Cuando (“When”)

Haré los deberes cuando deje de llover.
“I’ll do my homework when it stops raining.”

• Como (“As”)

Como tú mandes.
“As you wish.”

4. Conclusion

What do you think about our list? Was it useful? If you liked it, don’t miss our 100 Spanish nouns list! 

This article has provided you with 100 Spanish adverbs and plenty of information on how and when to use them. Do you remember what Spanish adverbs are now? Are you ready to impress your Spanish-speaking friends?

SpanishPod101.com has tons of vocabulary lists, videos, and free resources to help you improve your learning and keep your Spanish fresh. Create your free lifetime account today, and start learning Spanish like never before! We look forward to having you.

Conjugation is a fundamental aspect of Spanish. Yes, we wish it was easier than it is, but it’s definitely one of the basic skills you need to gain when learning Spanish. Just so you know, you don’t need to learn all Spanish conjugations at once, so feel free to learn them at your own pace. We’re just going to guide you so that you have an easier time studying the Spanish conjugation basics.

When you start learning a new language, you’ll most likely start by studying the present tense first, right? The basics you need for introducing yourself. It’s all about going through them step-by-step instead of rushing it all at once and trying to memorize them all at the same time. 

To give you an example, we all know what happens when you memorize something only for an exam: you spit it all out in the exam and then forget about it. That’s the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve here! 

Even though we’re going to offer you some very useful tables that show absolutely all the conjugations of a verb, they’re not there for you to learn in one day, but rather to help you organize all of this information. Remember, this is not a competition!

Table of Contents

1. What are Spanish Conjugations?
2. Verb Groups
3. Conjugation Examples
4. Irregular Verbs and their Conjugations
5. Spanish Conjugations Quiz
6. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn Spanish

1. What are Spanish Conjugations?

As we explained in our previous article about verbs, conjugation refers to all of the changes a verb goes through depending on a few factors. These factors include the person who does the action of that verb, or when the action happens, among others. One good thing about conjugation in Spanish is that it only affects verbs, so you don’t need to worry about other words changing to accommodate these factors.

In Spanish, conjugation affects mood, tense, the number of the subject, person, and sometimes the politeness level. We’ll look at all of these, one at a time.

1- Mood

If you look at a table with all the conjugations of any Spanish verb, such as the ones we’ve prepared for you below, you’ll find two main groups: indicativo (“indicative”) and subjuntivo (“subjunctive”). These two groups are two of the different moods in Spanish conjugation. The third mood is called imperativo (“imperative”) and it is, by far, not as broad as the other two. In fact, it only includes two different forms, which are singular and plural. 

In summary:

• The indicative mood in Spanish refers to facts and beliefs. 
  Marta me ha contado un secreto. → “Marta has told me a secret.”

• The subjunctive mood marks something that isn’t a fact, but something that’s hypothetical or something you wish had or hadn’t happened. 
  Ojalá Marta no me hubiera contado ese secreto. → “I wish Marta hadn’t told me that secret.”

• The imperative mood indicates command. 
  ¡Cuéntame algo! → “Tell me something!”

When students in school are learning the Spanish subjunctive mood, it often helps them to put the word ojalá in front of the verb to tell if it’s subjunctive or indicative. This word doesn’t have an exact English translation, but we can translate it as “I wish” or “I hope.” 

If you can use it, it means the verb is in the subjunctive mood. To give you an example, the sentence Ojalá llueva means “I hope it rains,” so it’s in the subjunctive mood. But, if it was simply Llueve, which just means “It’s raining,” we know it’s in the indicative mood because it’s a fact.

2- Tense

Inside each of these moods, we’ll find several tenses. In both cases, the Spanish verb tenses are also divided into two more subgroups, but these are only here to help us divide conjugations in a simpler way and make things easier to understand. These are simple tenses and compound tenses. As you might have guessed, simple tenses are formed by a single word and compound tenses are formed by two words.

Tenses in Spanish conjugation might have some weird and long names that you absolutely do not need to remember. As long as you know which ones refer to the present, which ones refer to the past, and which ones refer to the future, you’ll be fine. Trust us.

A. Indicativo

Tiempos simples (“Simple tenses”)

• Presente (“simple present”): canto → “I sing”
• Pretérito imperfecto (“imperfect preterite”): cantaba →  “I sang”
• Pretérito perfecto simple (“simple past”): canté →  “I sang”
• Futuro simple (“simple future”): cantaré → “I will sing”
• Condicional simple (“conditional”): cantaría → “I would sing”

As you can see, most of these tenses have a specific equivalent in English and do not need an explanation. However, you might have noticed that two of them translate to “I sang.” The pretérito imperfecto doesn’t exist in English, and instead it only uses the simple past tense. But in Spanish, this is quite important. 

Essentially, the pretérito imperfecto (cantaba) refers to a continuous action in the past, while the pretérito perfecto simple (canté) refers to a specific action in the past. This might sound a bit confusing, so we’re going to look at a couple of examples:

1.

Cuando era pequeño cantaba en un coro. (“When I was little, I sang in a choir.”)

In this example, both verbs are in the pretérito imperfecto and refer to continuous actions, or something that didn’t happen just once. Cuando era pequeño (“When I was little”) refers to a long period of time, because we were all little for years. Cantaba en un coro (“I sang in a choir”) means that I was in that choir for a while, even though I don’t specify for how long.

2.

Una vez, cuando era pequeño, canté una canción delante de mis amigos. (“Once, when I was little, I sang a song in front of my friends.”) 

In this case, the first verb is the same as in the previous example, but the second one, marked in bold, is in the pretérito perfecto simple, so it’s a specific action in the past. Una vez (…) canté una canción… (“Once (…) I sang a song…”) is talking about the one time this action happened. It doesn’t need to have happened only once: it could have happened more times. What’s important is that it wasn’t a continuous action.

Tiempos compuestos (“Compound tenses”)

• Pretérito perfecto compuesto (“present perfect”): he cantado →  “I have sung”
• Pretérito pluscuamperfecto (“past perfect”): había cantado → “I had sung”
• Pretérito anterior (“past preterite”): hube cantado 
• Futuro compuesto (“future perfect”): habré cantado → “I will have sung”
• Condicional compuesto (“conditional”): hubiera or hubiese cantado → “I would have sung”

Once again, we find one tense that doesn’t have a direct translation in English: the pretérito anterior. This tense isn’t used very often in Spanish (only in literature), but we’re still going to explain it briefly. The pretérito anterior refers to an action that happens just before another one, which is also in a past tense. For example:

Tan pronto como hubo terminado el libro, lo devolvió a la biblioteca. (“As soon as he finished the book, he returned it to the library.” 

In this example, the man returned the book immediately after finishing it. However, as we explained, this tense isn’t used much anymore, so we would usually say Tan pronto como terminó el libro instead, in the simple past tense.

B. Subjuntivo

Tiempos simples (“Simple tenses”)

The subjunctive tenses aren’t as easy to explain or translate as a single verb, so we’re going to give you examples of each tense.

• Presente: cante → Quiero que me cantes una canción. (“I want you to sing me a song.”)
• Pretérito imperfecto: cantara or cantase → Ojalá cantase mejor. (“I wish I sang better.”)
• Futuro simple: cantare

Tiempos compuestos (“Compound tenses”)

• Pretérito perfecto compuesto: haya cantado → Espero que Carla haya cantado bien. (“I hope Carla has sung well.”)
• Pretérito pluscuamperfecto: hubiera or hubiese cantado → Ojalá me hubiera cantado una canción. (“I wish she had sung me a song.”)
• Futuro compuesto: hubiere cantado

Notice that all of these examples require an extra verb: “I want,” “I hope,” “I wish.” A verb in the subjunctive mood is never alone!

Something you should also know is that, in the subjunctive mood, there are a couple of tenses that no one ever uses, which are the two future subjunctive tenses without examples in the previous list: futuro simple and futuro compuesto. We’ve included them on the tables anyway because they would have been incomplete if we hadn’t. But we promise that you don’t need to learn them!

C. Imperativo

As we explained before, the imperative mood refers exclusively to commands. There’s only one kind of imperative, but it can be in singular or plural, and it can be formal or informal. Here, the formal conjugation is different from the informal one.

• Singular, informal: canta
• Plural, informal: cantad
• Singular, formal: cante
• Plural, formal: canten 

D. Non-personal forms

And last but not least, there are a few non-personal forms that don’t belong in any of those moods. They also exist in English, as follows:

• Infinitivo (“infinitive”): cantar → “to sing” 
• Participio (“participle”): cantado → “sung”
• Gerundio (“gerund”): cantando → “singing”

The participle is used exactly the same way in Spanish and English, as you might have noticed when we explained the different Spanish tenses.

We haven’t seen the gerund before, but it’s also used similarly to how it is in English. In Spanish, for some reason, this isn’t considered a tense and it’s not usually included in the conjugation tables. However, it’s very commonly used. In English, you have the present continuous and past continuous tenses, and they’re both used in Spanish: 

• Estoy cantando. (“I am singing.”)
• Estaba cantando. (“I was singing.”)

While you might sometimes have doubts about the verbs estar and ser, in this case, we always use the verb estar.

3- Number

Spanish verbs, just like Spanish nouns or adjectives, change depending on how many people are performing the action of that verb. While some languages distinguish actions as being done by two people or a larger number of people, Spanish only makes two distinctions: singular and plural. It’s either one person, or it’s more. For example: 

• Yo como. (“I eat.”)
• Nosotros comemos. (“We eat.”)

4- Person

Just like verbs change depending on the number of the subject, verbs also conjugate depending on the person who performs the verb. In English, for example, the simple present tense shows that the first and second persons are different than the third person: “I eat,” “you eat,” “he/she eats.”

In Spanish conjugations, endings are different in every single person. To give you an example, we’ll use the same verb we used in English: yo como, tú comes, él/ella come. If you’re not familiar with Spanish subject pronouns, you might find our article about pronouns quite useful!

You might have noticed that the first three letters of the word don’t change, but the ending does. These first letters are called the stem of the verb and they stay the same in every single conjugation of this verb. 

Even though endings in all tenses are different, they follow a pattern.

• Yo (“I”): –
• Tú (“you”): –s
• Él/Ella (“he/she”): –
• Nosotros (“we”): -mos
• Vosotros (plural “you”): -is
• Ellos (“they”): –n

In case you’re wondering, we didn’t leave those two empty for no reason. We consider them not to have a specific ending, because they only use the ending of the tense in particular.

5- Politeness

You might already know that Spanish, unlike English, has a formal “you” pronoun that’s used when talking to someone who is important or above us, and sometimes even to older people. The truth is that it’s not used nowadays as often as it was in the past, but it’s still very important to know. You never know when you might need it. 

There are actually two pronouns, one for the singular (usted) and one for the plural (ustedes), with no distinction for gender. This formal pronoun doesn’t use the normal conjugation for tú (“you”), but actually uses the one for él or ella (“him” or “her”). For example, if you wanted to say “You’re very kind,” to a friend, you would say: Eres muy amable. But to speak more formally, you would say: Es muy amable.

2. Verb Groups

Once again, as you already saw in the article about verbs, Spanish conjugations are divided into three groups (or four, if we think of irregular verbs as another group). These groups are based on the ending of the verbs in their infinitive form. Verbs that end in –ar, such as saltar (“to jump”), form the first conjugation; verbs that end in –er, such as correr (“to run”), form the second conjugation; the third conjugation is formed by verbs that end in –ir, such as mentir (“to lie”).

Now, why is it important to know that there are different groups of verbs? Well, it’s quite useful when learning conjugations because Spanish conjugation rules are specific to a given group. In most cases, conjugations will be the same or similar, but you need to be careful sometimes. 

Spanish conjugations for present tense, for example, are easy to remember. If the verb is from the first conjugation (-ar), all forms will use the vowel a (except for the first person in the singular, but it’s an exception in all three conjugations!). If it’s from the second conjugation (-er), it will use the vowel e. However, the third conjugation (-ir) isn’t as regular as the others, since some forms use the vowel e and some use the vowel i. Let’s look at some examples:

• Saltar (“To jump”) → yo salto, tú saltas, él salta, nosotros saltamos, vosotros saltáis, ellos saltan
• Correr (“To run”) → yo corro, tú corres, él corre, nosotros corremos, vosotros corréis, ellos corren
• Mentir (“To lie”) → yo miento, tú mientes, él miente, nosotros mentimos, vosotros mentís, ellos mienten

Note that the verb of the third conjugation that we’ve chosen is also slightly irregular, since the stem—which would always be ment- if it was a regular verb—changes to mient- in a few of the forms.

Other tenses show most important changes, such as pretérito imperfecto, one of the simple past tenses. In the first conjugation, the endings are –aba, -abas, aba, ábamos… But in the second and third conjugations, the endings are -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos. They’re completely different.

In the following sections, we’ll take a closer look at each of the Spanish verb conjugation types. Let’s go! 

3. Conjugation Examples

1- First conjugation: cantar (“to sing”)

Indicativo

Simple tenses

Subject	Presente	Pretérito imperfecto	Pretérito perfecto simple	Futuro simple	Condicional simple
Yo (“I”)	canto	cantaba	canté	canté	cantaría
Tú (“you”)	cantas	cantabas	cantaste	cantarás	cantarías
Él/ella (“he”/ she”)	canta	cantaba	cantó	cantará	cantaría
Nosotros/as (“we”)	cantamos	cantábamos	cantamos	cantaremos	cantaríamos
Vosotros/as (plural “you”)	cantáis	cantabais	cantasteis	cantaréis	cantaríais
Ellos/as (“they”)	cantan	cantaban	cantaron	cantarán	cantarían

Compound tenses

Subject	Pretérito perfecto compuesto	Pretérito pluscuamperfecto	Pretérito anterior	Futuro compuesto	Condicional compuesto
Yo	he cantado	había cantado	hube cantado	habré cantado	habría cantado
Tú	has cantado	habías cantado	hubiste cantado	habrás cantado	habrías cantado
Él/ella	ha cantado	había cantado	hubo cantado	habrá cantado	habría cantado
Nosotros/as	hemos cantado	habíamos cantado	hubimos cantado	habremos cantado	habríamos cantado
Vosotros/as	habéis cantado	habíais cantado	hubisteis cantado	habréis cantado	habríais cantado
Ellos/as	han cantado	habían cantado	hubieron cantado	habrán cantado	habrían cantado

Subjuntivo

Simple tenses

Subject	Presente	Pretérito imperfecto	Futuro simple
Yo	cante	cantara or cantase	cantare
Tú	cantes	cantaras or cantases	cantares
Él/ella	cante	cantara or cantase	cantare
Nosotros/as	cantemos	cantáramos or cantásemos	cantáremos
Vosotros/as	cantéis	cantarais or cantaseis	cantareis
Ellos/as	canten	cantaran or cantasen	cantaren

Compound tenses

Subject	Pretérito perfecto compuesto	Pretérito pluscuamperfecto	Futuro compuesto
Yo	haya cantado	hubiera or hubiese cantado	hubiere cantado
Tú	haya cantado	hubieras or hubieses cantado	hubieres cantado
Él/ella	haya cantado	hubiera or hubiese cantado	hubiere cantado
Nosotros/as	hayamos cantado	hubiéramos or hubiésemos cantado	hubiéremos cantado
Vosotros/as	hayáis cantado	hubierais or hubieseis  cantado	hubiereis cantado
Ellos/as	hayan cantado	hubieran or hubiesen cantado	hubieren cantado

Imperative

canta

cantad

Non-personal forms

Infinitive	Participle	Gerund
cantar	cantado	cantando

2- Second conjugation: comer (“to eat”)

Indicativo

Simple tenses

Subject	Presente	Pretérito imperfecto	Pretérito perfecto simple	Futuro simple	Condicional simple
Yo	como	comía	comí	comeré	comería
Tú	comes	comías	comiste	comerás	comerías
Él/ella	come	comía	comió	comerá	comería
Nosotros/as	comemos	comíamos	comimos	comeremos	comeríamos
Vosotros/as	coméis	comíais	comisteis	comeréis	comeríais
Ellos/as	comen	comían	comieron	comerán	comerían

Compound tenses

Subject	Pretérito perfecto compuesto	Pretérito pluscuamperfecto	Pretérito anterior	Futuro compuesto	Condicional compuesto
Yo	he comido	había comido	hube comido	habré comido	habría comido
Tú	has comido	habías comido	hubiste comido	habrás comido	habrías comido
Él/ella	ha comido	había comido	hubo comido	habrá comido	habría comido
Nosotros/as	hemos comido	habíamos comido	hubimos comido	habremos comido	habríamos comido
Vosotros/as	habéis comido	habíais comido	hubisteis comido	habréis comido	habríais comido
Ellos/as	han comido	habían comido	hubieron comido	habrán comido	habrían comido

Subjuntivo

Simple tenses

Subject	Presente	Pretérito imperfecto	Futuro simple
Yo	coma	comiera or comiese	comiere
Tú	comas	cantaras or cantases	comieres
Él/ella	coma	comiera or comiese	comiere
Nosotros/as	comamos	comiéramos or comiésemos	comiéremos
Vosotros/as	comáis	comierais or comieseis	comiereis
Ellos/as	coman	comieran or comiesen	comieren

Compound tenses

Subject	Pretérito perfecto compuesto	Pretérito pluscuamperfecto	Futuro compuesto
Yo	haya comido	hubiera or hubiese comido	hubiere comido
Tú	hayas comido	hubieras or hubieses comido	hubieres comido
Él/ella	haya comido	hubiera or hubiese comido	hubiere comido
Nosotros/as	hayamos comido	hubiéramos or hubiésemos comido	hubiéremos comido
Vosotros/as	hayáis comido	hubierais or hubieseis  comido	hubiereis comido
Ellos/as	hayan comido	hubieran or hubiesen comido	hubieren comido

Imperative

come

comed

Non-personal forms

Infinitive	Participle	Gerund
comer	comido	comiendo

3- Third conjugation: vivir (“to live”)

Indicativo

Simple tenses

Subject	Presente	Pretérito imperfecto	Pretérito perfecto simple	Futuro simple	Condicional simple
Yo	vivo	vivía	viví	viviré	viviría
Tú	vives	vivías	viviste	vivirás	vivirías
Él/ella	vive	vivía	vivió	vivirá	viviría
Nosotros/as	vivimos	vivíamos	vivimos	viviremos	viviríamos
Vosotros/as	vivís	vivíais	vivisteis	viviréis	viviríais
Ellos/as	viven	vivían	vivieron	vivirán	vivirían

Compound tenses

Subject	Pretérito perfecto compuesto	Pretérito pluscuamperfecto	Pretérito anterior	Futuro compuesto	Condicional compuesto
Yo	he vivido	había vivido	hube vivido	habré vivido	habría vivido
Tú	has vivido	habías vivido	hubiste vivido	habrás vivido	habrías vivido
Él/ella	ha vivido	había vivido	hubo vivido	habrá vivido	habría vivido
Nosotros/as	hemos vivido	habíamos vivido	hubimos vivido	habremos vivido	habríamos vivido
habríamos vivido	habéis vivido	habíais vivido	hubisteis vivido	habréis vivido	habríais vivido
Ellos/as	han vivido	habían vivido	hubieron vivido	habrán vivido	habrían vivido

Subjuntivo

Simple tenses

Subject	Presente	Pretérito imperfecto	Futuro simple
Yo	viva	viviera	viviere
Tú	vivas	vivieras	vivieres
Él/ella	viva	viviera	viviere
Nosotros/as	vivamos	vivieramos	vivieremos
Vosotros/as	vivais	vivierais	viviereis
Ellos/as	vivan	vivieran	vivieren

Compound tenses

Subject	Pretérito perfecto compuesto	Pretérito pluscuamperfecto	Futuro compuesto
Yo	haya vivido	hubiera or hubiese vivido	hubiere vivido
Tú	hayas vivido	hubieras or hubieses vivido	hubieres vivido
Él/ella	haya vivido	hubiera or hubiese vivido	hubiere vivido
Nosotros/as	hayamos vivido	hubiéramos or hubiésemos vivido	hubieremos vivido
Vosotros/as	hayais vivido	hubierais or hubieseis  vivido	hubiereis vivido
Ellos/as	hayan vivido	hubieran or hubiesen vivido	hubieren vivido

Imperative

vive

vivid

Non-personal forms

Infinitive	Participle	Gerund
vivir	vivido	viviendo

For more examples, you can take a look at the many tables on the Real Academia Española website.

4. Irregular Verbs and their Conjugations

When doing Spanish conjugations, irregular verbs can be frustrating. In this section, we’ll show you how to conjugate one of the most common irregular verbs.

Irregular verb: ser (“to be”)

Indicativo

Simple tenses

Subject	Presente	Pretérito imperfecto	Pretérito perfecto simple	Futuro simple	Condicional simple
Yo	soy	era	fui	seré	sería
Tú	eres	eras	fuieste	serás	serías
Él/ella	es	era	fue	será	sería
Nosotros/as	somos	eramos	fuimos	seremos	seríamos
Vosotros/as	sois	erais	fuisteis	sereis	seríais
Ellos/as	son	eran	fueron	seran	serían

Compound tenses

Subject	Pretérito perfecto compuesto	Pretérito pluscuamperfecto	Pretérito anterior	Futuro compuesto	Condicional compuesto
Yo	he sido	había sido	hube sido	habré sido	habría sido
Tú	has sido	habías sido	hubiste sido	habrás sido	habrías sido
Él/ella	ha sido	había sido	hubo sido	habrá sido	habría sido
Nosotros/as	hemos sido	habíamos sido	hubimos sido	habremos sido	habríamos sido
Vosotros/as	habéis sido	habíais sido	hubisteis sido	habréis sido	habríais sido
Ellos/as	han sido	habían sido	hubieron sido	habrén sido	habrían sido

Subjuntivo

Simple tenses

Subject	Presente	Pretérito imperfecto	Futuro simple
Yo	sea	fuera or fuese	fuere
Tú	seas	fueras or fueses	fueres
Él/ella	sea	fuera or fuese	fuere
Nosotros/as	seamos	fuéramos or fuésemos	fueremos
Vosotros/as	seais	fuérais or fuéseis	fuereis
Ellos/as	sean	fueran or fuesen	fueren

Compound tenses

Subject	Pretérito perfecto compuesto	Pretérito pluscuamperfecto	Futuro compuesto
Yo	haya sido	hubiera or hubiese sido	hubiere sido
Tú	hayas sido	hubieras or hubieses sido	hubieres sido
Él/ella	haya sido	hubiera or hubiese sido	hubiere sido
Nosotros/as	hayamos sido	hubiéramos or hubiésemos sido	hubieremos sido
Vosotros/as	hayais sido	hubierais or hubieseis  sido	hubiereis sido
Ellos/as	hayan sido	hubieran or hubiesen sido	hubieren sido

Imperative

sé

sed

Non-personal forms

Infinitive	Participle	Participle
ser	sido	siendo

5. Spanish Conjugations Quiz

1- Mañana ________ (nosotros – ir) a la piscina. → “Tomorrow, we ____ ________ to the swimming pool.”

Options: hemos ido, iremos, habremos ido

2- Ya ____ ________ (yo – terminar) los deberes. → “I ____ already ________ my homework.”

Options: terminaré, has terminado, he terminado

3- Mi vecina ________ (ella – ser) muy alta. → “My neighbor ________ very tall.”

Options: soy, es, son

4- Ayer Carlos ________ (él – cantar) una canción en el karaoke. → “Yesterday, Carlos ________ a song at the karaoke.”

Options: cantó, cantaré, cantaría

6. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn Spanish

We hope you found this Spanish conjugation lesson useful and practical. We’ve said this before, but we want to emphasize again that you really don’t need to learn what all these tenses are called, and you don’t need to learn all of them at once. If you think learning them step-by-step is a good idea, how do you feel about receiving one new word every day? Subscribe to our Free Word of the Day!
Before you started learning Spanish, did you know that verbs had conjugations? In case you didn’t know, would you have changed your mind about starting to learn this language? Or would you have given some excuses to put off starting? We hope that’s not the case, but let us know in the comments!

Why learn Spanish verbs? Why are they important?

Language would pretty much not exist without verbs. We would still be able to talk, of course, and understand one another. But think of how you would need to describe something that you would normally express with a verb. For example, if you wanted to tell someone they need to run. Using verbs, this is something that we can express by just saying “Run!”

Take a moment to think of how you would say that with no verbs at all. It won’t take you very long: surely you’ll easily find another way of saying the exact same thing, but it might sound silly and you would probably use a few more words. This is one of the many reasons we need verbs.

Sadly, as you might already know, Spanish verbs aren’t as easy as English verbs. However, they’re similar to verbs in other romance languages (such as Italian or French), so if you already speak one of them, it won’t be that difficult. If you don’t, well, that’s why we’re here—to help you learn them. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

1. What You Need to Know
2. Different Groups of Verbs
3. Action Verbs
4. Self-care Verbs
5. Linking Verbs
6. Helping Verbs
7. Verb Placement in a Sentence
8. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn More Spanish

1. What You Need to Know

The first thing that you need to know about Spanish verbs is that they have conjugations. In case you only speak English or another language that doesn’t have (many) conjugations, we’ll try to explain it simply.

English verbs don’t usually change much, but the few changes they have will help us explain Spanish verb conjugation. Any regular verb in English has the same form in the present tense, except for the third-person: 

• “I buy” 
• “You buy” 
• “He/She buys” 

Can we say that’s a conjugation? Yes, it is! If we look at the verb “to be,” however, there are more changes:

• “I am” 
• “You are“
• “He/She is“
• “We are“

In Spanish, this happens to every verb. The good news is that most of the time, it’s only the ending that changes and not the entire word. The only exception is for the Spanish irregular verbs.

Something else you need to know is that Spanish, unlike other languages, tends to avoid using the subject. The reason for this is completely related to conjugations: Because the verb changes according to the subject, you already know the subject of this action without actually using the corresponding pronoun. We only use the pronoun when it might not be so obvious who the subject is, or when we want to emphasize it.

Here’s an example:

• Voy a comer un helado. 

“I’m going to eat ice cream.”

Voy is already expressing that I am the person who is going to eat it.

However, a few different things could happen to this same example. Let’s say the person you’re talking to didn’t hear you properly and asks you: 

• ¿Quién va a comer un helado? 

“Who is going to eat ice cream?”

In this case, you would need to emphasize that it’s you, so you would say: YO voy a comer un helado.

If that same example was in the third-person (Va a comer un helado), the person we’re talking to might not know who we’re talking about and we might need to use a pronoun or even their actual name. But this is exactly the same thing that happens in English!

2. Different Groups of Verbs

Verbs in Spanish can be divided into three different groups. This division is what helps us know which conjugation the verb follows, and it’s based on the ending of the verb in its infinitive form, which is the one you’ll always find in a dictionary. On top of that, we could say there’s still a fourth (and last) group which consists, of course, of irregular verbs. 

The three main groups are:

• Spanish verbs with AR
• Spanish verbs with ER
• Spanish verbs with IR

We’re only going to take a brief look at the different verb groups here because we’ll soon be publishing an article about conjugations.

Verbs that end in -ar 

The first group of verbs, which we call “first conjugation,” is formed by all Spanish verbs with the infinitive ending –ar. Some examples are cantar (“to sing”), jugar (“to play”), and amar (“to love”).

Verbs that end in -er

The second conjugation is formed by verbs that end in –er in their infinitive form. Some examples are comer (“to eat”) and leer (“to read”).

Verbs that end in -ir 

The third and last conjugation is, as you might have guessed by the subtitle, verbs that end in –ir in their infinitive form. Two examples of this conjugation are salir (“to exit”) and dormir (“to sleep”).

Irregular verbs 

As mentioned before, sadly, there are also some irregular verbs. The classic examples are ser and estar (“to be”), but there are a few more—such as ir (“to go”)—that we’ll mark with a (!) on the following list of verbs. 

Irregular verbs can have different kinds of irregularities. For example, some verbs might be completely irregular and have conjugations that don’t look like their infinitive form at all, while others have only certain irregularities, sometimes in a specific tense, such as the present. 

Alright, now that we’ve covered the basics, here’s our list of Spanish verbs you need to know as a beginner! 

3. Action Verbs

Physical Verbs 

1- andar

Meaning: “to walk”

Example: Todos los días voy andando al trabajo.

Translation: “I walk to work everyday.”

2- arreglar 

Meaning: “to fix”

Example: He tenido que llamar a un fontanero para que me arreglara el váter.

Translation: “I had to call a plumber to fix my toilet.”

3- besar

Meaning: “to kiss”

Example: ¿Vas a besarme o qué?

Translation: “Are you going to kiss me or what?”

4- caer

Meaning: “to fall”

Example: Ayer me caí y me rompí el brazo.

Translation: “Yesterday, I fell and broke my arm.”

5- cantar

Meaning: “to sing”

Example: A mi hermana le gusta mucho cantar.

Translation: “My sister really likes singing.”

6- cocinar

Meaning: “to cook”

Example: No sé qué cocinar esta noche.

Translation: “I don’t know what to cook tonight.”

7- comer

Meaning: “to eat”

Example: Hoy he comido cereales para desayunar.

Translation: “Today, I ate cereal for breakfast.”

8- comprar

Meaning: “to buy”

Example: Me he comprado un ordenador nuevo.

Translation: “I have bought a new computer.”

9- conducir

Meaning: “to drive”

Example: ¿Sabes conducir?

Translation: “Do you know how to drive?”

10- conseguir

Meaning: “to obtain” or “to achieve”

Example: He conseguido el visado.

Translation: “I have obtained the visa.”

11- correr

Meaning: “to run”

Example: Voy a tener que correr si quiero coger el autobús.

Translation: “I’m going to have to run if I want to take the bus.”

12- dar (!)

Meaning: “to give”

Example: Si te portas bien, te daré un trozo de chocolate.

Translation: “If you behave well, I’ll give you a piece of chocolate.”

13- decir (!)

Meaning: “to say”

Example: José me ha dicho que me quiere.

Translation: “José has told me that he loves me.”

14- descansar

Meaning: “to rest”

Example: ¿Has descansado bien?

Translation: “Have you rested well?”

15- empezar (!)

Meaning: “to start”

Example: Mañana empiezo a trabajar en una tienda.

Translation: “Tomorrow, I start working at a store.”

16- encontrar (!)

Meaning: “to find”

Example: Aún no he encontrado las llaves.

Translation: “I haven’t found my keys yet.”

17- enseñar

Meaning: “to teach” or “to show”

Example: Mi madre me enseñó a nadar cuando era pequeño.

Translation: “My mother taught me how to swim when I was little.”

18- entrar

Meaning: “to enter”

Example: Claro que puedes entrar en mi habitación.

Translation: “Of course you can enter my room.”

19- enviar

Meaning: “to send”

Example: He enviado una postal a mi abuela. 

Translation: “I have sent a postcard to my grandma.”

20- escribir

Meaning: “to write”

Example: Juan escribió su primer libro cuando tenía veinte años.

Translation: “Juan wrote his first book when he was twenty years old.”

21- ganar

Meaning: “to win”

Example: Ya hemos ganado tres partidos.

Translation: “We have already won three matches.”

22- gritar

Meaning: “to scream” or “to yell”

Example: ¡No me grites!

Translation: “Don’t yell at me!”

23- hacer (!)

Meaning: “to do” or “to make”

Example: ¿Has hecho los deberes?

Translation: “Have you done your homework?”

24- intentar

Meaning: “to try”

Example: He intentado decirle la verdad, pero no he podido.

Translation: “I tried to tell him the truth, but I couldn’t.”

25- ir (!)

Meaning: “to go”

Example: Este verano me voy de vacaciones a Londres.

Translation: “This summer, I’m going on holiday to London.”

26- jugar (!)

Meaning: “to play”

Example: Martín y yo jugamos a tenis los martes.

Translation: “Martín and I play tennis on Tuesdays.”

27- leer

Meaning: “to read”

Example: ¿Qué libro estás leyendo?

Translation: “What book are you reading?”

28- limpiar

Meaning: “to clean”

Example: Tengo que limpiar la cocina.

Translation: “I have to clean the kitchen.”

29- llamar

Meaning: “to call”

Example: Llámame cuando estés en casa.

Translation: “Call me when you’re home.”

30- llegar

Meaning: “to arrive”

Example: ¡Hemos llegado!

Translation: “We have arrived!”

31- llevar

Meaning: “to bring”

Example: ¿Vas a llevar algo a la cena?

Translation: “Are you bringing anything to dinner?”

32- mirar

Meaning: “to look” 

Example: ¡Mira a la derecha!

Translation: “Look right!”

33- mover

Meaning: “to move”

Example: Muévete, estás en medio.

Translation: “Move, you’re in the way.”

34- morir (!)

Meaning: “to die”

Example: Su abuela murió hace años.

Translation: “His grandmother died years ago.”

35- nadar

Meaning: “to swim”

Example: Me dijiste que te gustaba nadar, ¿no?

Translation: “You told me you liked to swim, didn’t you?”

36- pagar

Meaning: “to pay”

Example: Me gustaría pagar la cuenta.

Translation: “I would like to pay the bill.”

37- parar

Meaning: “to stop”

Example: Cuando llegues al final de la calle, para el coche.

Translation: “When you get to the end of the street, stop the car.”

38- perder

Meaning: “to lose”

Example: He perdido un poco de peso.

Translation: “I have lost a bit of weight.”

39- poner (!)

Meaning: “to put (on)”

Example: Ayer me puse un vestido nuevo.

Translation: “Yesterday, I put on a new dress.”

40- preguntar

Meaning: “to ask”

Example: ¿Te puedo preguntar algo?

Translation: “Can I ask you something?”

42- reír (!)

Meaning: “to laugh”

Example: Siempre te ríes cuando cuento un chiste.

Translation: “You always laugh when I tell a joke.”

42- regalar

Meaning: “to give (as a gift)”

Example: Creo que mis padres me quieren regalar un coche para mi cumpleaños.

Translation: “I think my parents want to give me a car for my birthday.”

43- robar

Meaning: “to rob” or “to steal”

Example: Me han robado el móvil.

Translation: “My phone has been stolen.”

44- salir (!)

Meaning: “to exit” or “to go out”

Example: Saldré en media hora.

Translation: “I’ll go out in half an hour.”

45- saltar

Meaning: “to jump”

Example: Tenemos que saltar a la vez.

Translation: “We have to jump at the same time.”

46- seguir

Meaning: “to follow”

Example: Vamos, ¡sígueme!

Translation: “Come on, follow me!”

47- trabajar

Meaning: “to work”

Example: Trabajo de camarera en un bar conocido.

Translation: “I work as a waitress in a well-known bar.”

48- vender

Meaning: “to sell”

Example: ¿Quieres que te venda mi televisión vieja?

Translation: “Do you want me to sell you my old TV?”

49- vivir

Meaning: “to live”

Example: Siempre he vivido en Valencia.

Translation: “I have always lived in Valencia.”

50- volar

Meaning: “to fly”

Example: Ese pájaro está volando muy cerca del fuego.

Translation: “That bird is flying very close to the fire.”

Mental Verbs

51- amar

Meaning: “to love”

Example: Siempre te amaré.

Translation: “I will always love you.”

52- aprender

Meaning: “to learn”

Example: Estoy aprendiendo español.

Translation: “I am learning Spanish.”

53- confiar

Meaning: “to trust”

Example: Solo confío en mi mejor amiga.

Translation: “I only trust my best friend.”

54- creer

Meaning: “to believe”

Example: ¿Crees en Dios?

Translation: “Do you believe in God?”

55- decidir

Meaning: “to decide”

Example: Hemos decidido casarnos.

Translation: “We have decided to get married.”

56- desear

Meaning: “to wish”

Example: Te deseo un feliz cumpleaños.

Translation: “I wish you a happy birthday.”

57- divertirse

Meaning: “to have fun”

Example: Me he divertido mucho hoy.

Translation: “I’ve had a lot of fun today.”

58- encantar

Meaning: “to love” (not romantic)

Example: ¡Me encanta el chocolate!

Translation: “I love chocolate!”

59- entender (!)

Meaning: “to understand”

Example: No te entiendo cuando hablas con la boca llena.

Translation: “I don’t understand you when you speak with your mouth full.”

60- gustar

Meaning: “to like”

Example: Siempre me ha gustado el arte.

Translation: “I have always liked art.”

61- juzgar

Meaning: “to judge”

Example: No juzgues a la gente sin conocerla.

Translation: “Don’t judge people without knowing them.”

62- necesitar

Meaning: “to need”

Example: Necesitas dormir más.

Translation: “You need to sleep more.”

63- odiar

Meaning: “to hate”

Example: Odio cuando te portas así.

Translation: “I hate when you behave like this.”

64- olvidar

Meaning: “to forget”

Example: ¿No se te olvida algo?

Translation: “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

65- pensar

Meaning: “to think”

Example: Queremos que sepas que pensamos mucho en ti.

Translation: “We want you to know that we think a lot about you.”

66- preocuparse

Meaning: “to worry”

Example: No te preocupes.

Translation: “Don’t worry.”

67- prohibir

Meaning: “to forbid”

Example: El gobierno ha prohibido fumar en la playa.

Translation: “The government has forbidden smoking at the beach.”

68- querer

Meaning: “to want” or “to love”

Example: No quiero ir al colegio.

Translation: “I don’t want to go to school.”

69- recordar

Meaning: “to remember” or “to remind”

Example: Te recuerdo que hoy te toca invitarme.

Translation: “Let me remind you that today, it’s your turn to invite me.”

70- saber (!)

Meaning: “to know”

Example: ¿Sabías que mi madre es italiana?

Translation: “Did you know that my mother is Italian?”

71- soñar

Meaning: “to dream”

Example: Anoche soñé con mi abuelo.

Translation: “Last night, I dreamed of my grandad.”

72- sorprender

Meaning: “to surprise”

Example: Mi novio nunca me sorprende.

Translation: “My boyfriend never surprises me.”

73- tener (!)

Meaning: “to have”

Example: Cuando era pequeño tenía dos perros.

Translation: “When I was little, I had two dogs.”

4. Self-care Verbs

You might notice that in this section, all verbs end in –se after their regular verbal ending. These verbs are called reflexive and require a reflexive pronoun. Even though English doesn’t require pronouns for this kind of verb, it’s important to use them in Spanish. We recently published an article about pronouns that will most likely help you understand these verbs. Just in case, we’ve also added a literal translation to each of these translations.

74- afeitarse

Meaning: “to shave”

Example: Mi padre se afeita todas las mañanas.

Translation: “My dad shaves every morning.” (Literally: “He shaves himself”)

75- arreglarse

Meaning: “to get ready”

Example: Espera cinco minutos, aún no me he arreglado.

Translation: “Wait five minutes, I didn’t get ready yet.” (Literally: “I didn’t get myself ready yet”)

76- bañarse 

Meaning: “to bathe”

Example: Me gusta bañarme antes de ir a dormir.

Translation: “I like to bathe before going to sleep.” (Literally: “I bathe myself”)

77- despertar(se)

Meaning: “to wake up”

Example: Siempre me despierto a las siete.

Translation: “I always wake up at seven.” (Literally: “I wake myself up”)

78- dormirse (vs. dormir [“to sleep”])

Meaning: “to fall asleep”

Example: Anoche me dormí a las once de la noche.

Translation: “Last night I fell asleep at eleven p.m.” (“Literally: “I put myself to sleep”)

79- ducharse

Meaning: “to shower”

Example: Todos los días me ducho antes de ir al trabajo.

Translation: “Every day, I shower before going to work.” (Literally: “I shower myself”)

80- levantarse 

Meaning: “to get up”

Example: No soy capaz de levantarme antes de las ocho.

Translation: “I’m not capable of getting up before eight.” (Literally: “I get myself up”)

81- maquillarse

Meaning: “to put on makeup”

Example: Marta nunca sale de casa sin maquillarse.

Translation: “Marta never leaves the house without putting on makeup.” (Literally: “She puts makeup on herself”)

82- peinarse

Meaning: “to brush one’s hair”

Example: ¿Te has peinado?

Translation: “Have you brushed your hair?” (In this case, we wouldn’t say it literally translates to “yourself,” because we already used “your.”)

83- vestirse

Meaning: “to get dressed”

Example: Deja que me vista primero.

Translation: “Let me get dressed first.”

5. Linking Verbs

84- ser (!) vs. 85- estar (!)

You’ve probably heard of these two verbs before. We know, they’re not fun. However, they’re extremely important in Spanish. They only have one translation in English, which is the verb “to be.”

An easy way of making a distinction between these two verbs is that ser is generally used for things that are permanent, while estar is used for things that are temporary. For example, I can say Soy española (“I am Spanish”) using the verb ser, because I will always be Spanish. But if I want to say “I’m sad,” I’ll use the verb estar, because I’m not always going to be sad: Estoy triste.

For some more information, check out our lesson on whether to use ser or estar.  

86- convertirse 

Meaning: “to turn into”

Example: Bruce Banner se convierte en Hulk.

Translation: “Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk.”

87- girar

Meaning: “to turn”

Example: Gira a la derecha después del edificio azul.

Translation: “Turn right after the blue building.”

88- oír (!)

Meaning: “to hear”

Example: Habla más alto, no te oigo.

Translation: “Speak louder, I can’t hear you.”

89- oler (!)

Meaning: “to smell”

Example: ¡Este perfume huele genial!

Translation: “This perfume smells great!”

90- parecer

Meaning: “to seem”

Example: A mí me parece que esto no va a funcionar.

Translation: “To me, it seems like this isn’t going to work.”

91- permanecer

Meaning: “to remain”

Example: Tienes que permanecer quieto.

Translation: “You need to remain still.”

92- saber (!)

Meaning: “to taste” (something tastes like…)

Example: Esta sopa no sabe a pollo.

Translation: “This soup doesn’t taste like chicken.”

93- saborear

Meaning: “to taste” (I taste…)

Example: Siempre saboreo bien el chocolate antes de comerlo.

Translation: “I always taste the chocolate well before eating it.”

94- sentir (!)

Meaning: “to feel”

Example: Siempre haces que me sienta especial.

Translation: “You always make me feel special.”

95- ver (!)

Meaning: “to see”

Example: No te veo.

Translation: “I don’t see you.”

6. Helping Verbs

96- deber

Meaning: “must” (or “should” if it’s in the conditional form debería)

Example: Debo verla.

Translation: “I must see her.”

97- haber

This verb is different than all the other verbs in Spanish, and it can have two different uses.

One of these two uses is that it’s the translation of “there is” and “there are.” For example: 

• Hay dos cabras. 

“There are two goats.”

• Hay solo una cama en mi habitación. 

“There is only one bed in my bedroom.”

The other use is purely as a Spanish auxiliary verb that we could translate to the verb “to have” in English, and we’ve actually seen it before throughout this article, in some tenses. For example, when in English we say “I have eaten,” we use “have” to express this tense. In Spanish, we use the verb haber. 

This same sentence, for example, would be translated into He comido, where he is the first-person in the singular of the verb haber in the present tense. “He has eaten,” as another example, would be translated to Ha comido.

98- poder (!)

Meaning: “can”

Example: No puedo ir al cine hoy.

Translation: “I can’t go to the cinema today.”

99- soler

Meaning: “use to”

Example: De pequeño solía ir en bici al colegio.

Translation: “When I was little, I used to go to school by bike.”

100- tener que

Meaning: “have to”

Example: Tengo que ir al trabajo.

Translation: “I have to go to work.”

7. Verb Placement in a Sentence

In Spanish, the basic sentence pattern is S+V+O, so: subject (which is optional, as you might remember), followed by a verb, and then possibly an object. For example: 

• Mi vecino tiene un gato. 

“My neighbor has a cat.”

In the case of questions, we have different options. If the question is preceded by an interrogative pronoun, the subject might be found after the verb. For example: 

• ¿Qué desea comer la señora? 

“What would the lady like to eat?”

However, unlike in English, if the question doesn’t need an interrogative pronoun, the pattern will be the same as in a regular affirmative sentence, such as: 

• ¿Tu hermano ha terminado el libro?

“Has your brother finished the book?”

8. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn More Spanish

We hoped this Spanish verbs lesson helped you get a bit more familiar with verbs in Spanish. Remember to keep following this blog so that you can read our more in-depth Spanish verb conjugation article once it’s published! As we mentioned before, we realize it can sound a bit scary when your mother tongue has simpler verbs, but once you learn them, you’ll see it’s not as hard as it looked at first!

You should also keep in mind that we’ve also published an article dedicated to the top 100 nouns in Spanish and a similar one about adjectives, as well as the previously mentioned article about pronouns. 

For some more vocabulary, you might like to subscribe to our Free Spanish Word of the Day and get an email with new words everyday. 

Before you go, let us know in the comments if there are any Spanish verbs you still want to know. We look forward to hearing from you!

Pronouns are essential in any language. All languages have pronouns, in some way or another, though some might not have as many as others. We use pronouns all the time, so not understanding them would mean missing a big part of the conversation. 

They simplify the language and make it possible for us not to repeat ourselves all the time. Sentences would be so much longer if we didn’t use pronouns or some other way of indicating what you’re talking about without constant repetition. 
There are many different kinds of Spanish pronouns, including indirect and direct object pronouns in Spanish, and we’re going to take a look at all of them. If you don’t feel like reading the entire article, you can always look at our list of the Most Useful Spanish Pronouns, even though you’re obviously not going to get as much information.

Table of Contents

1. Personal Pronouns
2. Demonstrative Pronouns
3. Interrogative Pronouns
4. Indefinite Pronouns
5. Spanish Relative Pronouns
6. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn More Spanish

1. Personal Pronouns

a) Spanish Subject Pronouns

Let’s begin with something simple: Spanish personal subject pronouns. All languages have subjects, which according to the Cambridge English Dictionary, consist of “the person or thing that performs the action of the verb or is joined to a description by a verb.” In English, these are “I,” you,” etc. In Spanish, we have a few more different subject pronouns than in English. This is because the words for “we” and plural “you” have both a masculine and a feminine form. 

We also have another pronoun for when we want to speak more formally, or when we’re talking to an important person. Nowadays, it’s not very common in Spain, though! That’s why we’re only including it in this first section. In any other section, the pronouns used for the formal “you” are the same as the pronouns for the third person.

One more thing that you need to keep in mind is that in Spanish, the subject is often omitted unless the person we’re talking to doesn’t know who we’re talking about or we want to emphasize it. This is because the verb changes depending on the person, so it already tells who the person is. We’re going to include the subject on all of the following examples, but keep in mind that you won’t usually need to use them. 

• Yo (“I”)

Yo tengo un hermano.

“I have a brother.”

• Tú (“you”)

Tú tienes un hermano.

“You have a brother.”

• Usted (formal “you”)

Usted tiene un hermano.

“You have a brother.”

• Él / ella (“he” / “she”)

Ella tiene un hermano.

“She has a brother.”

• Nosotros / nosotras (“we”)

Nosotros tenemos un hermano.

“We have a brother.”

• Vosotros / vosotras (“you”)

Vosotros tenéis un hermano.

“You have a brother.”

• Ustedes (formal “you”)

Ustedes tienen un hermano.

“You have a brother.”

• Ellos / ellas (“they”)

Ellos tienen un hermano.

“They have a brother.”

b) Spanish Direct Object Pronouns

An object is something or someone that’s affected by the action of the verb. So, for example, in the sentence Juan tira la pelota (“Juan throws the ball”), la pelota (“the ball”) is the object. This object can be substituted for a pronoun, if what you’re talking about is already known. If you wanted to substitute the object in that sentence for a pronoun, the sentence would become Juan la tira (“Juan throws it“). 

Look at the Spanish pronoun’s placement in the sentence. Even though the object is found after the verb, the pronoun always goes in front of it, as opposed to English.

• Me (“me”)

Juan me quiere.

“Juan loves me.”

• Te (“you”)

Te quiero.

“I love you.”

• Lo / la (“him” / “her”)

La quiero.

“I love her.”

• Nos (“us”)

Nuestros padres nos quieren.

“Our parents love us.”

• Os (“you”)

Os queremos.

“We love you.”

• Los / las (“them”)

Las quiero.

“I love them.”

c) Spanish Indirect Object Pronouns

These pronouns are very similar to the direct object pronouns. You’ll soon notice that only the third person changes. In English, they’re always the same, unless we rephrase them a little. However, in Spanish, we use them differently. They both go in front of the verb, but they have different meanings. 

To see an example, we can use the same sentence we saw when we explained direct object pronouns, but we’ll add an indirect object to it: Juan tira la pelota a Carlos (“Juan throws the ball to Carlos”). Here, a Carlos (“to Carlos”) is the indirect object. 

Now, to substitute this indirect object for a pronoun, we can transform this sentence in a couple of different ways. If we only wanted to substitute the indirect object, the sentence would become: Juan le tira la pelota (“Juan throws him the ball”). But if we wanted to change both objects, it would be: Juan se la tira (“Juan throws it to him“). You might have noticed that we used a different pronoun, even though they both mean the same thing. 

No need to worry. The third person is the only one that has two different forms, and se is only used when it’s next to direct object pronouns. In all other cases, there’s only one pronoun for both circumstances.

• Me (“[to/for] me”)

¿Me vas a mandar algo por mi cumpleaños?

“Are you going to send me anything for my birthday?”

• Te (“[to/for] you”)

Te tengo que devolver el libro.

“I have to give you your book back.”

• Se/le (“[to/for] him/her”)

Traigo un regalo para mi madre. → Le traigo un regalo. → Se lo traigo.

“I bring a present for my mom.” → “I bring her a present.” → “I bring it to her.”

• Nos (“[to/for] us”)

Nos han regalado estas toallas.

“They gave us these towels.”

• Os (“[to/for] you”)

Os voy a decir la verdad.

“I’m going to tell you the truth.”

• Se/les (“[to/for] them”)

He hecho una tortilla para mis amigos. → Les he hecho una tortilla. → Se la he hecho.

“I made an omelette for my friends.” → “I made them an omelette.” → “I made it for them.”

d) Spanish Prepositional Pronouns

The following pronouns are also personal, but they’re a bit different than the others. We call them “prepositional” because they always follow a preposition. (P.S.: Be sure to check out the video above about the most common Spanish prepositions!) 

Once again, the translation into English is the same as the object pronouns, but they’re not the same in Spanish.

• Mí (“me”)

No te rías de mí.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

• Ti (“you”)

Sin ti todo es diferente.

“Everything is different without you.”

• Él / ella (“him” / “her”)

Soy feliz con él.

“I’m happy with him.”

• Nosotros / nosotras (“us”)

Para nosotros no es lo mismo.

“It’s not the same to us.”

• Vosotros / vosotras (“you”)

Esto lo he hecho por vosotras.

“I have done this for you.”

• Ellos / ellas (“them”)

El gato es de ellos.

“The cat is from them.”

Whenever you find the preposition con (“with”) in front of the pronouns mí (“me”) and ti (“you”), we actually need to put the two words together and change them a little bit, to conmigo (“with me”) and contigo (“with you”), specifically. For example: Estoy bien contigo (“I’m fine with you”).

e) Spanish Possessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns do go after the verb, just like in English. However, there’s an important difference between them and their English counterparts: English uses one pronoun per person, independently of the gender or number of the word. In Spanish, each pronoun has four different forms. We’re going to be nice and include all of them, but just so you know, they always have the same ending. Masculine singular words end in –o, feminine singular words end in –a, and whenever it’s plural, you add an -s to the previous ending.

• Mío / mía / míos / mías (“mine”)

Este móvil es mío.

“This phone is mine.”

• Tuyo / tuya / tuyos / tuyas (“yours”)

Esta pelota es tuya.

“This ball is yours.”

• Suyo / suya / suyos / suyas (“his” / “hers”)

Los pañuelos son suyos.

“The tissues are his/hers.”

• Nuestro / nuestra / nuestros / nuestras (“ours”)

El coche es nuestro.

“The car is ours.”

• Vuestro / vuestra / vuestros / vuestras (“yours”)

Las muñecas son vuestras.

“The dolls are yours.”

• Suyo / suya / suyos / suyas (“theirs”)

La casa es suya.

“The house is theirs.”

f) Spanish Reflexive Pronouns

Reflexive pronouns in Spanish always need to be the same person as the subject of the verb, just like in English. Even though all of these pronouns have an equivalent in English, we use them a lot more in Spanish, and very often when we translate one of these sentences, they aren’t actually used in English. Well, we could add them, but it would be very unnecessary.

This is because Spanish has some verbs which are known as reflexive, that always need one of these pronouns in order to make sense. To learn more about them, check out our lesson “What are Reflexive Verbs?“

• Me (“myself”)

Aún me tengo que maquillar.

“I still need to put on my makeup.”

• Te (“yourself”)

¿A qué hora te has levantado?

“What time did you wake up?”

• Se (“himself” / “herself”)

Se llama Paula.

“Her name is Paula.”

• Nos (“ourselves”)

Nos vamos a peinar antes de salir.

“We’re going to brush our hair before going out.”

• Os (“yourselves”)

¿Os podéis sentar?

“Could you sit down?”

• Se (“themselves”)

Los niños se van a duchar ahora.

“The kids are going to shower now.”

2. Demonstrative Pronouns

In Spanish, demonstrative pronouns are quite similar to those in English, but there are a couple of differences. One of them is that while English only has a form for the singular and one for the plural, Spanish also takes feminine words into account. This shouldn’t surprise you at this stage, because they work just like possessive pronouns, which we saw previously. There’s also a sort of neutral gender in demonstrative pronouns, which are esto, eso, and aquello. Even though they end in –o and therefore look like the masculine gender, they’re neutral because they’re not linked to a specific noun; they’re kind of saying “this/that thing.”

Just like in English, we use este (“this”) when something is close, and ese (“that”) when it’s far. But Spanish adds a third demonstrative pronoun, which is aquel. The secret to understanding these three pronouns is to link them to different people. No, we don’t mean specific people. Este (“this”) is linked to yo (“I”), which is the speaker, while ese (“that”) is linked to tú (“you”), which is the person we’re talking to. However, aquel (once again, “that”) is linked to someone else who isn’t part of the conversation. 

This is exactly what happens to the other three pronouns we have in this Spanish pronouns list, which are completely related to the previous ones (as you’ll see in the following examples). These are aquí, ahí, and allí. Aquí means “here,” while ahí refers to something that isn’t very close, and allí refers to something that’s a lot farther away.

In the past, these pronouns used to have an accent, so they were spelled éste, ése, and aquél instead. However, a few years ago, the Real Academia Española (RAE) decided to delete them for good, so now you don’t need to worry about them anymore.

• Este / esto / esta / estos / estas (“this” / “these”)

Este de aquí es mi primo.

“This one here is my cousin.”

• Ese / eso / esa / esos / esas (“that” / “those”)

Estos coches no me gustan, prefiero esos.

“I don’t like these cars, I prefer those.”

• Aquel / aquello / aquella / aquellos / aquellas (“that” / “those”)

Aquel suele ir al bar del puerto.

“That one often goes to the bar at the port.” 

• Aquí (“here”) 

Es la primera vez que vengo aquí.

“This is the first time I’ve come here.”

• Ahí (“there”)

En ese banco de ahí nunca se sienta nadie.

“No one ever sits on that bench over there.”

• Allí (“there”)

Antes solía subir aquella montaña y sentarme ahí arriba.

“I used to climb up that mountain and sit up there.”

3. Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns in Spanish aren’t hard to learn, because they work exactly the same way as in English. It’s the first word in a sentence, and just like most of them in English start with wh-, in Spanish most of them start with the sound [k], which in this case can be represented by q– or c-. For more examples, take a look at our Top 15 Questions You Should Know for Conversations.

• Qué (“what”)

¿Qué vas a hacer este verano?
“What are you going to do this summer?”

• Cuál (“which”)

¿Cuál de ellos es Carlos?

“Which one of them is Carlos?”

• Por qué (“why”)

¿Por qué te tienes que ir tan pronto?

“Why do you have to leave so soon?”

• Quién (“who”)

¿Quién eres?

“Who are you?”

• Dónde (“where”)

¿Dónde viven tus abuelos?

“Where do your grandparents live?”

• Cuánto (“how much”)

¿Cuánto cuesta esta falda?

“How much does this skirt cost?”

• Cuántos/cuántas (“how many”)

¿Cuántas hermanas tienes?

“How many sisters do you have?”

¿Cuántos años tienes?

“How old are you?”

• Cuándo (“when”)

¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?

“When is your birthday?”

4. Indefinite Pronouns

When it comes to indefinite pronouns in Spanish, some are similar to those in English and some are not. Here’s a list that will surely be useful.

• Alguno (“some”)

Seguro que alguno de ellos irá.

“I’m sure some of them will go.”

• Alguien (“someone” or “anyone”)

¿Hay alguien que pueda recogerme en el aeropuerto?

“Is there anyone who can pick me up at the airport?”

• Algo (“something”)

Hay algo que te tengo que preguntar.

“There is something I need to ask you.”

• Otro/s (“another”)

Se te ha ensuciado la bufanda, ¿no tienes otra?

“You got your scarf dirty, don’t you have another one?”

• Cualquiera (“anyone”)

Puedes preguntárselo a cualquiera.

“You can ask anyone.”

• Mucho/s (“many”)

Muchos de mis amigos van a la universidad.

“Many of my friends go to university.”

• Todo (“all” or “everything”)

Todo lo que dice Marta es mentira.

“Everything that Marta says is a lie.”

• Todos (“everyone”)

Todos te van a decir lo mismo.

“Everyone is going to tell you the same thing.”

• Nada (“nothing” or “anything”)

No quiero nada para mi cumpleaños.

“I don’t want anything for my birthday.”

• Nadie (“nobody”)

No conozco a nadie que viva en Madrid.

“I don’t know anyone who lives in Madrid.”

• Ninguno (“none”)

Ninguno de mis amigos va a ir a la fiesta.

“None of my friends is going to the party.”

5. Spanish Relative Pronouns

One good thing about relative pronouns in Spanish is that we don’t have any confusion between “who” and “whom.” We do have a specific word for “whose,” which is cuyo, but it’s not as widely used, even though we have included it in the list below. The pronoun quien (“who”) is actually not used very much either, as we often just use the pronoun que (“that”).

Notice that most of these are similar to interrogative pronouns. However, there’s an important difference: interrogative questions have accents, such as dónde (“where”), while relative pronouns don’t.

• Que (“that”)

Este es el chico que te dije.

“This is the guy (that) I told you about.” 

• El cual / la cual / los cuales / las cuales (“which”)

Esta es la casa en la cual creció mi abuela.

“This is the house in which my grandmother grew up.”

• Quien / quienes (“who”)

Esta es la chica a quien vi en el parque.

“This is the girl (who) I saw in the park.”

• Cuyo / cuya / cuyos / cuyas (“whose”)

Juan, cuyo hermano murió el año pasado, va a venir a vernos.

“Juan, whose brother died last year, is going to come visit us.”

• Donde (“where”)

Aquí es donde nos conocimos.

“This is where we first met.”

6. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn More Spanish

You might have noticed that even though there are some exceptions, pronouns in Spanish work quite similarly as those in English, which definitely makes them easier to learn. Even though there are several types of Spanish pronouns, they should all make sense to someone who speaks English, even if it’s not as a first language. 

Now that you’ve taken the time to study Spanish pronouns, which usually substitute nouns, it would be a good idea to learn the 50 most common nouns in Spanish, wouldn’t it? At SpanishPod101.com, you’ll learn everything you need—and sometimes even things you wouldn’t expect to learn, such as all these untranslatable words in Spanish that you’ll probably find interesting. 

Before you go, let us know in the comments how you feel about Spanish pronouns now. More confident, or is there something you’re still struggling with? We look forward to hearing what you have to say!

How do you say “time” in Spanish? And how do you say “What time is it?” in Spanish? 

Did you know that to tell the time you should never use the literal translation, tiempo? 

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. We’ll answer this and other questions more in-depth in this blog post! Learn everything about how to say the time in Spanish with SpanishPod101.com!

Learning about telling time in Spanish, along with how to introduce yourself in Spanish, is significantly important if you want to improve your conversation skills. 

Even in your native language, knowing the right way of telling the time can help you avoid misunderstandings. Well, time is so crucial in Spanish culture that learning how to tell time is as important as time itself. 

Let’s get started with our guide on time in Spanish for beginners! 

Table of Contents

1. How to Ask for the Time
2. The Hours in Spanish
3. The Minutes in Spanish
4. Hours Divided into Minutes in Spanish
5. General Time Reference of the Day
6. Time Adverbs
7. Time Proverbs and Sayings in Spanish
8. Conclusion

1. How to Ask for the Time

Telling the time in Spanish is simple if you know the cardinal numbers and the verb “to be” (ser). Once you practice and master those two things, asking and telling the time in Spanish will be so much easier. 

• ¿Qué hora es?

“What time is it?”

In some Latin American countries, you may hear ¿Qué hora son? instead of ¿Qué hora es?. Both are correct for asking the time in Spanish. The singular form is used mostly in Spain and the plural form is used mostly in Latin American Spanish-speaking countries.

• ¿Qué hora son?

“What time is it?”

To learn how to say the time in Spanish, you also need to know that “time” in Spanish is tiempo. Tiempo also means “weather,” but you never use tiempo to ask for the time. 

• Hoy hace buen tiempo.

“Good weather today.”

To learn how to ask the time in Spanish, you just have to change the word “time” to the word for “hour.” So “What time is it?” would be translated as ¿Qué hora es? This is the easiest way to learn how to say time in Spanish. But there are some other ways of asking what the time is in Spanish, such as ¿Tienes hora? which means “Do you have the time?”

Another way to learn how to ask the time is by asking what time something is (e.g. a meeting, a concert, or work): ¿A qué hora es el concierto? To ask “At what time is,” in Spanish (e.g. “What time is the concert?”), notice that you have to add an a before qué, which means “at.”

Once you have these few things in mind, it will be so much easier for you to ask for the time in Spanish. 

Asking correctly is as important as telling the time in Spanish. So let’s look at some formulas and tricks on how to say the time in Spanish in case you get asked. 

Verb to be (Es / Son) + la(s) + number from one to twelve + number of minutes

• Es la una de la mañana.

“It is 1 a.m.”

OR

• Es la una en punto.

“It’s one o’clock.”

Es + la + una + y + number of minutes

• Es la una y treinta minutos.

“It’s 1:30 a.m.”

• Es la una y diez minutos.

“It’s 1:10 a.m.”

If you want to say any hour between two and twelve, you have to use the third person of the plural son, as follows:

• Son las tres de la mañana.

“It’s three a.m.”

If someone tells you the time, make sure you say “thank you,” and do it the right way.

2. The Hours in Spanish 

If you can count from one to twelve, you’re already on the right path—cardinal numbers are essential for telling the time in Spanish. If you don’t know all of them yet, here you just need to know the numbers from one to twelve. 

Uno — “One”

Dos — “Two”

Tres — “Three”

Cuatro — “Four”

Cinco — “Five”

Seis — “Six”

Siete — “Seven”

Ocho — “Eight”

Nueve — “Nine”

Diez — “Ten”

Once — “Eleven”

Doce — “Twelve”

Once you have these memorized, you can try using them in one of the formulas we’ve covered. Another thing to keep in mind when learning how to say “What time is it?” is that “o’clock,” which is en punto, doesn’t always need to be added.

Example:

• Son las ocho.

“It’s eight o’clock.”

• Son las ocho en punto.

“It’s eight o’clock.”

Easy peasy, right? 

So, how do you know if it’s morning or evening? 

When telling the time in Spanish, know that you don’t need to use a.m. or p.m. Although it’s correct to say, most Spanish speakers don’t use them. We prefer to say ocho de la mañana (“eight in the morning”) or diez de la noche (“ten in the evening”). However, when it comes to writing the time in Spanish, we use the twenty-four-hour clock (also known as military time).

However, this is very subjective because some of the Latin American countries aren’t used to using the twenty-four-hour clock and use a.m. and p.m. more often than in Spain.

The general rule in Spain is: Write in military time and speak the time as numbers from one to twelve. For example, if you’re going to a theater show, you’ll see the time on their page or billboard as follows:

22:30 

But you’ll say to a friend by phone:

• Las diez y media de la noche.

“Ten thirty at night.”

For some Latin American countries, the night starts when it’s dark, around six p.m. This is because they’re near the equator, and thus the time the sun sets doesn’t change much during the summer. 

For the Spanish, on the other hand, the night starts after eight p.m. “Six p.m.” is still seis de la tarde.

It’s important to remember then that the Spanish language is gendered. So, when learning about time in Spanish, you need to know that you should always use the feminine article –las because it refers to la hora. The only exception is when you’re talking about one o’clock, in which case you use la.

• Es la una en punto.

“It is one o’clock.”

• Son las tres de la tarde.

“It is three p.m.”

3. The Minutes in Spanish

When learning how to tell time in Spanish, there are multiple levels that you can aim for once you start using the minutes in Spanish. You can start with the easy formula of saying the number of minutes after the hour. To reach the highest level, use phrases such as “quarter to,” in Spanish, “quarter past,” “half,” or “minutes to (hour).”

An easy way to say the minutes in Spanish is to just say the number of minutes. But to make things simpler, let’s learn the minutes by fives:

2:05 Las dos y cinco

3:10 Las tres y diez

4:15 Las cuatro y quince

5:20 Las cinco y veinte

6:25 Las seis y veinticinco

7:30 Las siete y treinta

7:35 Las siete y treinta y cinco

8:40 Las ocho y cuarenta

9:45 Las nueve y cuarenta y cinco

10:50 Las diez y cincuenta

11:55 Las once y cincuenta y cinco

After the number of minutes, you can add the word minutos. It’s the translation for “minutes,” and you’ll always use this word in the plural unless you say “one minute” (y un minuto).

• Son las tres y cinco minutos.

“It is three and five minutes.”

• Son las doce y un minuto.

“It is one minute past twelve.”

4. Hours Divided into Minutes in Spanish

So one way of improving your level of Spanish is to expand on your knowledge of hours in Spanish. What do I mean? You can identify your level of Spanish by whether you’re able to understand and tell the time in Spanish by half, quarter, and three quarters of an hour.

How do we do this? 

The same way we divide time in English. Dividing the clock into blocks of fifteen minutes. Every fifteen minutes, we’re talking about cuartos or “quarters.”

To talk about half an hour in Spanish, you need to use y media.

Unlike in English, in Spanish you say the hour first, then the minutes:

• 01:30 p.m. 

La una y media.

“Half past one.”

To say that it’s a quarter past an hour in Spanish, you need to use y cuarto.

• 01:15 p.m. 

Es la una y cuarto.

“It is a quarter past one.”

To say that it’s a quarter until an hour in Spanish, you need to use menos cuarto. This means that you tell the hour first, and then you have to take away the quarter from the time that’s approaching. It sounds like “one minus quarter” for 12:45 p.m. 

Like in English, the Latin American Spanish-speakers use the phrase “quarter till” in a similar manner. It’s okay to use this, especially if you’re learning. Then, once you get a better understanding and you need to improve your Spanish skills, you can start telling time like Spaniards do. 

Note that even for some Latinos it’s hard to tell the time the European Spanish way, so go easy on yourself! 

Latin American Spanish:

• 01:45 p.m

Faltan un cuarto para las dos.

“It is a quarter to two.”

The most difficult to learn and remember is the quarter until an hour. This is because you may still be thinking it in the English way. 

In English:

Minutes left to the time approaching + “to” + hour (from one to twelve)

Example:

01:45 p.m. — “A quarter to two.”

In Spanish:

Hour (from one to twelve) + menos + minutes left to the approaching time

Example:

01:45 p.m. — Las dos menos cuarto.

5. General Time Reference of the Day

As we said earlier, in Spanish we’re more used to saying “in the morning” or “in the evening” to refer to a.m. or p.m. While we do understand it if we see it, we don’t usually use these terms. 

Instead, we use other words that refer to certain times of the day, and these will be very good for you to learn. Let’s take a look! 

• Primera hora de la mañana — “Early morning”

Example: 

Tengo cita en el médico a primera hora de la mañana.

“I have a doctor’s appointment in the early morning.”

• Amanecer — “Sunrise”

Example:

El amanecer más bonito que he visto nunca ha sido en Cádiz.

“The most beautiful sunrise that I’ve never seen was in Cadiz.”

• Mediodía — “Noon” or “Midday”

Example:

La clase acaba en el mediodía. 

“The class ends at noon/midday.”

• Primera hora de la tarde — “Early afternoon”

Example:

¿Quedamos para el café a primera hora de la tarde?
“Shall we meet for coffee at early afternoon?”

• Noche — “Evening” or “Night”

Example:

¿Cuántas noches has tenido que trabajar esta semana?

“How many nights did you have to work this week?”

• Puesta de sol — “Sunset”

Example:

Me han contado que en Bali hay unas puestas de sol mágicas.

“I have been told that in Bali there are magical sunsets.”

• Medianoche — “Midnight”

Example:

Con 15 años mis padres me dejaban salir los fines de semana hasta medianoche.

“When I was 15 years old, my parents would let me go out on the weekends until midnight.”

6. Time Adverbs

In Spanish, we use adverbs of time, place, mode, or quantity all the time. With them, you add information to verbs, adjectives, and even to the whole sentence. 

You’ll quickly become very familiar with them since they’re essential when you’re learning how to tell time in Spanish. 

• Antes — “Before”

Example:

Kike, lávate las manos antes de comer.

“Kike, wash your hands before eating.”

• Después — “After”

Example:

Después de comer apetece una siesta.

“After eating, you want a nap.”

• Luego — “Later”

Example:
Llámame luego.

“Call me later.”

• Pronto — “Soon”

Example:

Te veo pronto.

“See you soon.”

• Tarde — “Late”

Example:

Se me está haciendo tarde para ir al supermercado.

“It’s getting late to go to the supermarket.”

• Temprano — “Early”

Example:

Hay que levantarse temprano para ir al colegio mañana.

“We have to wake up early to go to school tomorrow.”

• Todavía (This adverb has different meanings in English, depending on the time verb you’re using.):

– “Still”

– “Yet”

– “Even so”

Example:
Todavía estoy aquí esperándote.

“I am still here waiting for you.”

Example:
Todavía no he estado en París.

“I have not been to Paris yet.”

• Ayer — “Yesterday”

Example:
Ayer Luis me dejó esperando una hora en el café.

“Luis left me waiting for one hour in the coffee shop yesterday.”

• Hoy — “Today”

Example:
Tengo tres entrevistas de trabajo hoy.

“Today, I have three job interviews.”

• Mañana — “Tomorrow”

Example:
Sara, por favor, revisa mi agenda de mañana.

“Sara, check tomorrow’s agenda, please.”

• Antes de ayer o anteayer — “The day before yesterday”

Example:
Antes de ayer empecé con el entrenamiento.

“I started with my training the day before yesterday.”

• Pasado mañana — “The day after tomorrow”

Example:
Pasado mañana empieza el mes de julio.

“July starts the day after tomorrow.”

• Siempre — “Anytime”, “always,” or “forever”

The word “anytime” refers to “always” in terms of describing every time that something happens. But we translate the same word siempre, or with cada vez.

Example:

Siempre que Antonio va al parque se encuentra al gato perdido.

“Anytime Antonio goes to the park he runs into the lost cat.”

• “Always” is the most common way to translate siempre. It refers to “all the time” and “forever.”

Example:

Siempre te querré.

“I will always love you.”

• Nunca, Jamás — “Never”

Example:

Nunca más vuelvo a fiarme de un desconocido.

“I will never again trust a stranger.”

• Prontamente, Pronto — “As soon as possible”

Example:

Ven a recogerme pronto.

“Come and pick me up as soon as possible.”

• En un rato – “In a little while”

Example:

Estaré preparada en un rato.

“I’ll be ready in a little while.”

7. Time Proverbs and Sayings in Spanish

If you want to sound like a Spanish native, idioms and expressions are the best way to show off. However, it’s important that you know when and how to use them, or it can have the opposite effect! 

Some great phrases for latecomers include Voy en camino (“I’m on my way”) and Llego tarde (“I’m late” or “I’m running late”). These are great to send by text so you don’t keep people waiting.

The expressions “time is money” and “time flies” refer to moments in which time goes fast and you have to take advantage of it. Their translations are el tiempo es dinero and el tiempo vuela respectively.

Other common expressions in Spanish are:

• El tiempo cura las heridas. — “Time heals all wounds.”
• Más vale tarde que nunca. — “Better late than never.”
• A quien madruga, Dios le ayuda. — “The early birds get God’s help.”

8. Conclusion

So, reader, do you feel more confident about telling time in Spanish now? In the comments below, tell us what time it is where you are, in Spanish! 

Next time you’re late to an appointment or want to ask someone on a date, you can come back to this page for help setting up times or letting someone know you’re almost there. You can use all of our fun lessons, idiomatic expressions, and more resources at our SpanishPod101 website.

SpanishPod101 has many vocabulary lists for you for free, and of course, our Spanish Resource Corner for any other questions you may have. Why don’t you practice your Spanish by asking other Spanish speakers what they’re up to?

Happy Spanish learning! 🙂

Did you know that every noun in Spanish has a gender? Once you learn the words on our Spanish nouns list, and study up on Spanish nouns gender rules, you’ll be able to recognize them and speed up your learning.

For even more words, you can check out the Spanish core 100-word list at SpanishPod101!



Table of Contents

1. What is a Noun in Spanish?
2. Noun-Adjective Agreement in Spanish
3. Essential Spanish Nouns to Know: Common Spanish Nouns List
4. Conclusion

1. What is a Noun in Spanish?

Nouns name or identify a person, animal, place, thing, or idea. Spanish nouns can be singular or plural, but the most important thing you need to know if you’re a Spanish learner is that nouns are always gendered. Let’s dig a little deeper into Spanish nouns’ gender.

Nouns in Spanish can be masculine or feminine. Crazy, huh? How do you know if a Spanish word is feminine or masculine? And what about plural vs. singular nouns?

It may take some time to get used to these rules, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to do this without even thinking!

To recognize the plural nouns in Spanish, you’ll see these words end in the letter -s. If you don’t see the -s, the Spanish noun is singular, will normally end with one of the following vowels: -a, -e, or -o.

To determine the gender of nouns in Spanish:

• Feminine nouns in Spanish will end with an -a.


• Masculine nouns in Spanish will end with an -e or -o.

The idea of gender nouns in Spanish can be confusing at first because there are some nouns in Spanish that don’t follow the rules above.

For example el sol, or “the sun,” ends with the consonant -l. In cases like this, the article will tell you which gender a noun is (unlike in English). Most nouns are used together with an article, like in this example. El tells you the noun is masculine, even if the noun itself doesn’t provide that information.

In English, the articles “the” or “a(n)” accompany nouns. In Spanish, here are two translations:

Masculine articles:

• Singular: el
Plural: los

Example:

• El sol brilla todas las mañanas.
  “The sun shines every morning.”


• Yo voy a misa todos los domingos.
  “I go to church every Sunday.”

Feminine articles:

• Singular: la
• Plural: las


• La luna está llena hoy.
  “We have a full moon today.”


• Las puertas están abiertas hasta las 22 h.
  “Doors are opened until 10 p.m.”

Possessive pronouns in Spanish can also help you to identify the gender of the noun. Why? Because of their ending vowel of -o or -a.

For example:

• La cama es mía.
  “The bed is mine.”


• El coche es mío.
  “The car is mine.”

The examples above also show you that you have to use the possessive pronouns in Spanish depending on the gender of the object. In this case, if you’re a man and you want to talk about “the house,” which in Spanish is a feminine object, you have to say La casa es mía (“The house is mine”).

2. Noun-Adjective Agreement in Spanish

The noun-adjective agreement is another essential aspect of Spanish nouns for beginners. Adjectives can help you identify the gender of a noun in Spanish. If the noun in Spanish is feminine, the adjective should be feminine:

• Mi novia es tímida.
  “My girlfriend is shy.”

If the noun in Spanish is masculine, the adjective should be masculine:

• Mi hermano es alto.
  “My brother is tall.”

This noun-adjective agreement in Spanish can also help you with singular and plural nouns in Spanish:

• Mi coche es pequeño.
  “My car is small.”


• Los autobuses son grandes.
  “Buses are big.”

There are some nouns in Spanish that are neutral or of ambiguous gender. How can you identify them? By the articles.

• La atleta
  “Female athlete”


• El atleta
  “Male athlete”

Some Spanish plural nouns exceptions include:

Nouns that end in -z, such as pez (“fish”), should end in -ces: Peces.

If the noun in Spanish ends in a consonant, you should add -es.

• Doctor
  “Doctor”


• Doctores
  “Doctors”

When you’re referring to a group of things or people, when there’s at least one masculine noun in Spanish, you should refer to the entire group as masculine:

• 1 perro + 3 perra = Los perros.
• “1 male dog + 3 female dogs = The dogs [masculine].”

Without nouns, we wouldn’t be able to name people, things, or ideas, so we need them for everything. This is why in Spanish, this is one of the first things you should learn, together with verbs, which are a basic Spanish grammar lesson.

Once you’ve stopped by our page on the Top 25 Nouns, you may want to learn more—and you’re in the right place! In the next part of this lesson, we’ll go over common Spanish nouns by category, and allow you to see each of these Spanish nouns in a sentence!

Without further ado, our key Spanish nouns list.

3. Essential Spanish Nouns to Know: Common Spanish Nouns List

1- “Appliances” (Electrodomésticos)

Televisión — “TV”

La televisión está encendida.
“The TV is on.”

Ordenador portátil — “Laptop”

Mi hermano me ha roto mi ordenador portátil.
“My brother broke my laptop.”

Frigorífico — “Fridge”

He visto a mi hermano quien estaba buscando comida en el frigorífico.
“I saw my brother, who was looking for food in the refrigerator.”

Aire acondicionado — “Air conditioner”

Los aires acondicionados son bastante costosos.
“Air conditioners are very expensive.”

Secador de pelo — “Hairdryer”

Yo tenía un secador muy bueno.
“I used to have a good hairdryer.”

Ventilador — “Fan”

Cuando encendí el ventilador, mis deberes volaron por todo el cuarto.
“When I turned on the fan, my homework blew all over the room.”

Microondas — “Microwave”

¿Ponemos las palomitas en el microondas?
“Shall we put the popcorn in the microwave?”

Lavadora — “Washing machine”

Se me ha roto la lavadora.
“My washing machine is broken.”

Cocina — “Stove”

Hay tres ollas en la cocina.
“There are three pans on the stove.”

2- “Technology” (Tecnología)

Móvil — “Mobile phone”

Hoy día hay móviles por todo el mundo.
“Nowadays there are mobile phones everywhere.”

Blog — “Blog”

Todas las empresas deberían tener un blog.
“Every company should have a blog.”

Aplicación — “App”

Puedes buscar cualquier cosa en la aplicación.
“You can search for anything on their app.”

Página web — “Website”

Estaba visitando tu página web; es increíble.
“I was looking at your website; it’s amazing.”

Cuenta — “Account”

¿Tienes cuenta de Instagram?
“Do you have an Instagram account?”

Foto — “Picture”

Las fotos están muy pequeñas.
“The pictures are too small.”

Descargar — “Download”

¿Me puedes descargar estas fotos?
“Can you download these pictures?”

Contraseña — “Password”

Se me olvidó la contraseña de mis redes sociales.
“I forgot my password to my social media accounts.”

Archivo — “File”

No has agregado el archivo al correo.
“You did not attach the file to the email.”

Correo basura — “Spam”

Me ha llegado tu correo al correo basura.
“I got your email in my spam.”

Tablet — “Tablet”

Voy a subir todas mis fotos desde mi tablet a mi Facebook.
“I will upload all my pictures from my tablet to my Facebook.”

Wifi — “Wifi”

¿Hay wifi aquí?
“Do you have wifi here?”

3- “Transportation” (Transporte)

Avión — “Plane”

El avión a París tiene dos horas de retraso.
“The plane to Paris has a two-hour delay.”

Tren — “Train” / Metro — “Subway”

Cada día cojo dos trenes y el metro para llegar al trabajo.
“I take two trains and the subway to get to work every day.”

Bicicleta — “Bike”

La bicicleta es el mejor método de transporte en Amsterdam.
“The bike is the best transportation method in Amsterdam.”

Autobús — “Bus”

Los autobuses son un desastre en Medellín; nunca llegan a tiempo.
“Buses are a mess in Medellin; they’re never on time.”

Estación de tren — “Train station”

¿En qué estación de tren bajas?
“In which train station do you get off?”

Parada — “Bus stop”

En cinco paradas me bajo.
“In five bus stops I’ll get off.”

Semáforo — “Traffic light”

Fíjate en los semáforos o algún día tendrás un accidente.
“Look at the traffic lights, otherwise you’ll have an accident one day.”

Patinete eléctrico — “Electric scooter”

Los patinetes eléctricos causan muchos accidentes a los peatones.
“Electric scooters cause a lot of pedestrian accidents.”

Carretera — “Road”

¿Cuál es la carretera que llega más rápido a tu casa?
“What is the fastest road to your home?”

Taxi — “Taxi”

En Nueva York los taxis son amarillos.
“Taxis in New York are yellow.”

Intersección — “Intersection”

La intersección camino al centro es súper peligrosa.
“The intersection on the way to the center is very dangerous.”

4- “Restaurant” (El restaurante)

Copa — “Glass”

La copa está llena de vino blanco.
“The glass is full of white wine.”

Jarra — “Jug”

¿Me traes una jarra de agua, por favor?
“Can I have a jug of water, please?”

Plato — “Plate”

Mi plato está sucio.
“My plate is dirty.”

Tenedor — “Fork”

El arroz no se come con tenedor.
“Rice is not eaten with a fork.”

Cuchara — “Spoon”

En la India se comen el arroz con cuchara.
“In India, the rice is eaten with a spoon.”

Cuchillo — “Knives”

Tenemos muchos tenedores, cucharas y cuchillos.
“We have many forks, spoons, and knives.”

Vaso — “Glass”

El vaso está lleno de whiskey.
“The drinking glass is full of whiskey.”

Taza — “Mug”

Mi taza favorita es la rosa.
“My favorite mug is the pink one.”

5- “School essentials” (Lo esencial para volver a clase)

Bolígrafo or Boli — “Pen”

¿Me puedes prestar un boli?
“Can I borrow a pen?”

Asignatura — “Subject”

Mi asignatura favorita en la escuela eran las matemáticas.
“My favorite subject in school was math.”

Universidad — “University”

Sarah era mi mejor amiga en la universidad.
“Sarah was my best friend at university.”

Deberes — “Homework”

El niño está haciendo los deberes.
“The boy is doing homework.”

Beca — “Scholarship”

He recibido una beca completa de la Universidad de Brighton.
“I have received a full scholarship from University of Brighton.”

Mochila — “Backpack”

Cómprale la mochila de color negro.
“Buy the black backpack.”

Cuaderno — “Notebook”

Se me perdió el cuaderno.
“I have lost my notebook.”

6- “Occupation” (Profesiones)

Enfermero — “Nurse”

Este hombre es un enfermero.
“This man is a nurse.”

Empresario — “Executive”

Los empresarios están teniendo una reunión en la sala de juntas.
“The executives are having a meeting in the boardroom.”

Policía — “Police”

El oficial de policía no tiene su uniforme.
“The police officer does not have his uniform.”

Cocinero — “Cook”

El cocinero está asando el cerdo.
“The cook is barbecuing pork.”

Encargado — “Manager”

El encargado del supermercado está dando instrucciones.
“The store manager is giving instructions.”

Atleta — “Athlete”

Mi mejor amiga es atleta profesional.
“My best friend is a professional athlete.”

Ingeniero — “Engineer”

Mi hermano es ingeniero en Apple.
“My brother is an engineer at Apple.”

Profesor — “Teacher”

Mi madre es profesora.
“My mother is a teacher.”

Médico — “Doctor”

Luisa estudió mucho para ser médico.
“Luisa studied a lot to become a doctor.”

Bombera — “Firewoman”

Sofía quiere ser bombera.
“Sofia wants to be a firewoman.”

Bibliotecaria — “Librarian”

Mi tía es bibliotecaria.
“My auntie is a librarian.”

7- “Family members” (Miembros de la familia)

Familia — “Family”

La familia está en la foto.
“The family is in the picture.”

Madre — “Mother” / Padre — “Father”

Mi madre y mi padre estuvieron casados por 30 años.
“My mother and father were married for 30 years.”

Hija — “Daughter”

El padre está mirando a su hija.
“The father is looking at his daughter.”

Hijo — “Son”

Mi hijo ha estudiado hasta ahora dos carreras.
“My son has studied for two BAs so far.”

Mamá — “Mom”

¡Ayuda a mamá! Está llevando la cesta de las toallas ella sola.
“Help mom! She is carrying the towel basket by herself.”

Abuela — “Grandmother”

La abuela se está comiendo un plátano.
“Grandma is eating a banana.”

Tío — “Uncle”

Mi tío tiene un hijo adoptado precioso.
“My uncle has a beautiful adopted child.”

Tía — “Aunt”

¿Es esa tu tía la peluquera?
“Is that your aunt who is a hairdresser?”

Hermano — “Brother”

Mi hermano pertenece al equipo de fútbol de la universidad.
“My brother belongs to the university football team.”

Hermana — “Sister”

Mi hermana está estudiando para ser policía.
“My sister is studying to be a police officer.”

8- “Body parts” (Partes del cuerpo)

Pie — “Foot”

Su pie derecho es más grande que el izquierdo.
“His right foot is bigger than his left one.”

Mano — “Hand”

La mujer se está lavando las manos.
“The woman is washing her hands.”

Cabeza — “Head”

Deberías usar casco para proteger tu cabeza.
“You should wear a helmet to protect your head.”

Brazo — “Arm”

El niño está levantando los brazos.
“The child is raising his arms.”

Espalda — “Back”

Mi hermano se ha hecho daño en la espalda por levantar cosas pesadas ayer. “My brother hurt his back by lifting heavy things yesterday.”

Pecho — “Chest”

Tengo dolor en el pecho.
“I have a pain in my chest.”

Cuerpo — “Body”

Mi hijo está aprendiendo sobre el cuerpo humano.
“My son is learning about the human body.”

Dedo — “Finger”

Me he hecho daño en el dedo meñique.
“I hurt my pinkie finger.”

Ojo — “Eye”

Se quemó ambos ojos.
“He burned both his eyes.”

Oído — “Ear”

Solo puede escuchar por un oído.
“He can only hear from one ear.”

9- “Time” (Fechas)

Ayer — “Yesterday”

Ayer por la tarde me tomé la medicina.
“I took the medicine yesterday afternoon.”

Vez — “Time”

He perdido la cartera tres veces.
“I have lost my purse three times.”

Vida — “Life”

Me gusta el yoga como estilo de vida.
“I like yoga as a lifestyle.”

Año — “Year”

Me gusta ir a Italia todos los años.
“I like to go to Italy every year.”

Tiempo — “Time”/”Weather”

En México siempre hace buen tiempo.
“In Mexico, we always have good weather.”

¿Cuánto tiempo tarda la tarta?
“How long would the cake take?”

Día — “Day”

Espero que tengas un buen día de trabajo.
“I hope you have a good day at work.”

Calendario — “Calendar”

¿Cuál es el calendario de festivos de este 2019?
“Which is the holiday calendar for this 2019?”

Mañana — “Tomorrow”

Mañana tengo el día muy ocupado.
“I have a very busy day tomorrow.”

10- “Food” (Alimentos)

Agua — “Water”

Dicen que es bueno beber dos litros de agua al día.
“It is said that it’s good to drink two liters of water a day.”

Carne — “Meat”

Los vegetarianos no comen nada de carne.
“Vegetarians don’t eat meat at all.”

Pescado — “Fish”

¿Cuál es el mejor pescado de la ciudad?
“What is the best fish in town?”

Pollo — “Chicken”

¡No te comas mi pollo!
“Don’t eat my chicken!”

Leche — “Milk”

Me gusta el té con leche.
“I like tea with milk.”

Sopa/Crema — “Soup”

Mi madre hace la mejor sopa de invierno.
“My mom makes the best winter soup.”

Verduras — “Vegetables”

Yo compro las verduras en el mercado local.
“I buy the vegetables in the local market.”

Cerdo — “Pork”

Los musulmanes no comen cerdo.
“Muslims don’t eat pork.”

Ternera — “Beef”

Mi plato favorito es la sopa de vegetales con ternera.
“My favorite dish is vegetable soup with beef.”

Vino — “Wine”

Siempre me tomo una copa de vino con todas mis comidas.
“I always have a glass of red wine with my meals.”

Pan — “Bread”

¿Me trae pan, por favor?
“Could you please bring me some bread?”

Cerveza — “Beer”

Dos cervezas más para la mesa cinco.
“Two more beers to table five.”

4. Conclusion

Once you familiarize yourself with this Spanish nouns list, start using them in context by trying them out in your conversations. Don’t worry about the feminine and masculine uses in your Spanish nouns practice at first; this will come automatically. You can master your Spanish skills with SpanishPod101, using our fun and practical learning tools for every learner!

Before you go, drop us a comment to let us know if there are any Spanish nouns or grammar rules you’re still struggling with. We’d love to hear from you!

The gender of nouns in Spanish is part of a noun’s identity. We won’t be able to use a noun correctly without its corresponding article. If English (or another language with genderless nouns) is your first language, you probably freaked out when you found out that nouns have gender in Spanish. We admit that it does sound a little scary at first.

But hey, if it makes you feel better, at least Spanish isn’t like German, which has three genders, or like Polish, which has a few more than that. Or Swedish, which has two genders that aren’t feminine or masculine. There are many languages that use genders.

Fortunately, we only have two genders, and we plan on keeping them. They might not always make sense to a foreigner (I mean, why would a chair be feminine?), but they do make sense to us and it would sound really funny if someone didn’t use them right. This is why we’re about to teach you all you need to know about gender in Spanish.

Table of Contents

1. Spanish Language Gender Rules: How Does it Work?
2. How to Make a Good Guess on the Gender of a Word
3. How to Memorize the Gender of a Word
4. Animals
5. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn More Spanish

1. Spanish Language Gender Rules: How Does it Work?

Let’s start with something simple: the word for “gender” in Spanish is género, and our two genders are femenino (“feminine” ) and masculino (“masculine” ). That’s easy; everyone knows these two genders.

Now, how is the Spanish language affected by gender? As we mentioned previously, this topic mostly revolves around nouns. That means that every noun has one gender or the other, and that the words around it (which are articles, adjectives, and sometimes, pronouns) must match that gender.

However, we’re going to be mostly focusing on the gender of Spanish nouns, and will help you a little bit with adjectives and articles. The reason we won’t be talking about pronouns is because we’ll be publishing an article about pronouns soon, so keep your eyes peeled! If you can’t wait, check out our list of the most useful Spanish pronouns.

1 – Articles

The most common structure for nouns in Spanish is (article) + noun + (adjective), so we’re going to follow this structure and talk about Spanish article gender rules first.

In English, there are two articles, which are “the” and “a(n),” but Spanish has a few more. Don’t let this frighten you, but we have a total of eight articles. Yes, eight. The reason we have so many is because they change according to both gender and number.

Definite articles (“the” ) → “the kid” or “the kids”

• Masculine, singular: el → el niño
• Feminine, singular: la → la niña
• Masculine, plural: los → los niños
• Feminine, plural: las → las niñas

Indefinite articles (“a,” “an,” “some” ) → “a kid” or “some kids”

• Masculine, singular: un → un niño
• Feminine, singular: una → una niña
• Masculine, plural: unos → unos niños
• Feminine, plural: unas → unas niñas

2 – Nouns

As you know, when talking about genders in Spanish, nouns are the most important. Basically, each noun has been assigned to be masculine or feminine. We don’t really get a say in this; we’ve all learned that this is the way Spanish works and we’ve accepted it.

Spanish mostly comes from Latin, which also has genders (three, actually), so a lot of these genders have just been passed on from Latin or other languages that have influenced Spanish over the centuries.

We could say some of these genders make more sense than others. For example, la mujer (“the woman” ) is obviously feminine, but un brazo (“an arm” ) is masculine and una pierna (“a leg” ) is feminine. We can’t really explain why, other than the ending of these words.

3 – Adjectives

Adjectives, just like articles, need to “agree” in number and gender with the noun they’re modifying. All adjectives change when it comes to number, so when the noun next to it is in the plural form, the adjective will need an -s at the end (or -es sometimes).

However, gender is a little bit different. In this sense, there are different kinds of adjectives. Whenever an adjective ends in -o in its masculine form, it has a masculine and a feminine form. For example: blanco / blanca (“white” ). This is the most common type of adjective.

Some other adjectives, however, don’t change. These are all adjectives that end in -e, in consonants, or some trickier ones to see, in -ista. Here are some examples: grande (“big” ), gris (“gray” ), and realista (“realistic” ).

There are some exceptions to Spanish gender rules for adjectives ending in consonants, which are the following endings: -or, -ón, -ol, -án, -ín, and -és. For example: alemán / alemana (“German” ) and francés / francesa (“French” ).

For more information, you might want to check out our article on adjectives. You might also be interested in this list of adjectives that describe personalities.

2. How to Make a Good Guess on the Gender of a Word

Let’s focus on nouns properly this time. How do you know if a Spanish word is masculine or feminine?

As we’ve mentioned, nouns dictate the gender of everything that surrounds them, so we need to know what gender a noun is before we know what article or adjective we want to use next to it.

Something that you should always remember is that when talking about a group of people or animals that includes both males and females, we always use the masculine form of the noun. For example:

Tengo cuatro perros: dos machos y dos hembras.
“I have four dogs: two males and two females.”

• Words that end in -o or -a

There are two things that you need to keep in mind to know if a word is feminine or masculine.

The first thing is that words that end in -o are most likely masculine. Examples: un zapato (“a shoe” ) and un vaso (“a glass” ).

The second thing is that words that end in -a are most likely feminine. Examples: una taza (“a cup” ) and una casa (“a house” ).

But of course, there are exceptions to this rule: una mano (“a hand” ), un mapa (“a map” ), un día (“a day” )…There are also words like moto and foto, which are feminine words but aren’t really exceptions, because they actually come from motocicleta (“motorbike” ) and fotografía (“photography” ) respectively.

• Other masculine words

There are some other exceptions that also follow rules. For example, words that end in -ma are masculine words, such as un problema (“a problem” ) and el alma (“the soul” ).

Other masculine words that don’t end in -o are those that end in -or, such as el color (“the color” ) or el humor (“the humor” ). However, as always, there are exceptions to the exception. A common example of this is la flor, which is a feminine word that means “the flower.”

• Other feminine words

Words that end in -sión, -ción, -dad or -tad, -tud, or -umbre are always feminine words. Examples: una presión (“a pressure” ), una transformación (“a transformation” ), una cantidad (“a quantity” ), la libertad (“the freedom” ), una solicitud (“a request” ), la servidumbre (“the servitude” ), etc.

• Other exceptions to gender rules in Spanish

There are some words that have random endings. Thankfully, there aren’t that many, but we should still consider them. For example, un lápiz, which means “a pencil,” has an unusual ending, -z.

3. How to Memorize the Gender of a Word

When learning a noun, it might be useful to learn it together with its corresponding article, especially when it’s not a typical word with an -o or -a ending.

There are some nouns that refer to animals and people that might have two different forms, such as the example we gave you when we listed the different articles there are in Spanish: niño means “kid,” but depending on whether it ends in -o or -a, it will refer to a boy or a girl respectively.

When it comes to professions, some nouns have the same form whether they’re masculine or feminine, and some change their ending. For example, artista means “artist” and it refers to both men and women. But if you want to talk about the person who delivers your mail, you’ll talk about a cartero or a cartera, depending on his or her gender.

The main Spanish dictionary, Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (DRAE), always indicates the gender of the noun (m. or f.). For example, the world cumpleaños, which means “birthday,” has the letter m. for masculine. In the case of adjectives, it always shows first the masculine form, and then the ending of the feminine form. One example is the adjective rojo, which means “red.” As you can see, it appears as rojo, ja, to show you both endings. If the adjective only has one form, it doesn’t give you any more information.

There are many activities and games you could try to help you memorize the gender of a noun, such as quizzes or flashcards that include an article or an adjective in the correct gender of the nouns you want to learn.

Our vocabulary lists also state what the gender of a noun is. For example, you can see it in this list of the 50 most common nouns in Mexican Spanish, or in this list of the 100 core Spanish words.

4. Animals

When it comes to animals, Spanish can be a little strange, we admit. Some words for animals are masculine, and some are feminine. Others, as mentioned before, can have a different ending—or even be completely different words. Just like with other nouns, it might not always make sense for an animal to be masculine or feminine, but it’s still important.

Before we get started with this, there’s a joke about animals and Spanish genders that might help you understand this whole thing:

A British man and a Spanish man are fishing when the British man sees a fly and says: “Look, un mosca.” The Spanish man corrects him: “No, it’s una mosca.” The British man responds: “Wow, you Spaniards have really good eyesight.”

Obviously, you understand that this is not about eyesight, but of knowing that the words we use to name animals have genders that might not be the same as their actual gender.

Feminine animals

• Una cebra (“a zebra” )
• Una mosca (“a fly” )
• Una oveja (“a sheep” )
• Una cabra (“a goat” )
• Una vaca (“a cow” )
• Una araña (“a spider” )

Masculine animals

• Un elefante (“an elephant” )
• Un caracol (“a snail” )
• Un loro (“a parrot” )
• Un pez (“a fish” )
• Un pavo (“a turkey” )
• Un pájaro (“a bird” )

Different endings

• Un perro/una perra (“a dog” )
• Un gato/una gata (“a cat” )
• Un cerdo/una cerda (“a pig” )
• Un león/una leona (“a lion” )
• Un oso/una osa (“a bear” )

Different words

• Un caballo (“a horse” ) / una yegua (“a mare” )
• Un gallo (“a rooster” ) / una gallina (“a hen” )

When talking about an animal that might have different word endings depending on its gender, we normally use the masculine form first if we don’t know the actual gender of the animal.

For a few more examples of animals in Spanish, take a look at this vocabulary list of animal names.

5. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn More Spanish

We know that learning gender in Spanish isn’t easy, but it’s very important. You must keep in mind that it’s all about getting used to the genders; once you do, you won’t even have to think about them. They’ll just come to you. So give it a chance and you’ll see it’s not that difficult!

At SpanishPod101.com, you’ll find everything you need to learn Spanish. In this article, we mostly talked about nouns, but we’ve also mentioned articles and adjectives, so this could be a good time to read about adverbs too. You might be interested in learning how to get around in Spanish, or maybe you would like to improve your pronunciation.

Did we talk about anything in this article that you’re still uncertain about? Or do you feel much more confident with Spanish noun genders? Let us know in the comments; we look forward to hearing from you!

In a sentence, prepositions are the glue that connects pronouns, nouns, and other words to convey the most accurate meaning and reveal the relationship between them. Spanish prepositions are no different than prepositions in other languages.

If you asked any educated Spaniard about Spanish prepositions, they would tell you that they still remember the list of prepositions in alphabetical order they had to learn in school. This list has changed slightly over the years. A couple of them have been deleted, and a few more have been added.

The current official list is: a, ante, bajo, cabe, con, contra, de, desde, durante, en, entre, hacia, hasta, mediante, para, por, según, sin, so, sobre, tras, versus, vía.

Some of us learned a similar list, but durante and mediante were at the end because they were the newest additions. Now there are even more, though there are some prepositions in the list that aren’t used anymore—if you asked a Spanish speaker, they might not even know what they mean.

This is not the way we’re going to learn in this Spanish prepositions guide today. There’s no point in just learning a long list of prepositions in alphabetical order, so we’re going to list the most common Spanish prepositions with examples, and explain how you can use each of them. We’re also going to organize them in a way that will actually help you learn them and understand their functions.

With SpanishPod101, understanding Spanish prepositions is simple!

Table of Contents

1. What is a Preposition?
2. 23 Most Common Prepositions
3. So… When Do We Use Them?
4. Change of Forms
5. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn More Spanish

1. What is a Preposition?

Prepositions are words that can go in front of a noun phrase, such as a noun (that might also carry an article or an adjective with it) or a pronoun.

Prepositions can have different functions. For example, Spanish prepositions for location help express where something happens, while Spanish prepositions of time mark when that thing happens.

The best thing about Spanish prepositions—something you’ll most likely appreciate—is that in Spanish, there’s no possible confusion with certain prepositions such as “in,” “on,” and “at” in English. Instead, if we’re in/at/on a place, we only use en. We do have a preposition that translates to “on,” but it’s only used when something is on top of something else.

2. 23 Most Common Prepositions

We’re going to start with a list of the twenty-three most common prepositions in Spanish. We’ve omitted a few that aren’t used or that you’ll never need, but we have included compound prepositions—also known as Spanish prepositional phrases—that are often not considered prepositions. You might not have found these words in a different list even though they’re used very often. We’ll provide an example for each different use a given preposition has.

Here’s our list of Spanish prepositions and when to use them:

1- A

• Motion (“to” )

Example: Después del trabajo me voy a la playa.
Translation: “After work, I’m going to the beach.”

• Time (“at” )

Example: Te veo a las dos en punto.
Translation: “I’ll see you at two o’clock.”

• Indirect object (“to”/”for” )

Example: Le he hecho una tarta a mi abuela.
Translation: “I have made a cake for my grandma.”

2- Bajo

• Location (“under” )

Example: Los peces viven bajo el mar.
Translation: “Fish live under the sea.”

3- Con

• Relation (“with” )

Example: Estoy cenando con Carlos.
Translation: “I’m eating dinner with Carlos.”

4- Contra

• Relation (“against” )

Example: No tengo nada contra tu mujer.
Translation: “I have nothing against your wife.”

5- De

• Relation (“of”/possessive “’s” )

Example: Esta chaqueta es de Sara.
Translation: “This jacket is Sara’s.”

• Location (“from” )

Example: Soy de Barcelona.
Translation: “I’m from Barcelona.

6- Delante de

• Location (“in front of” )

Example: Estoy delante de tu casa.
Translation: “I’m in front of your house.”

7- Desde

• Time (“since” )

Example: Conozco a Pablo desde que teníamos cuatro años.
Translation: “I’ve known Pablo since we were four years old.”

• Location (“from” )

Example: Ayer corrimos desde el parque hasta la playa.
Translation: “Yesterday we ran from the park to the beach.”

8- Detrás de

• Location (“behind” )

Example: ¡Vigila! ¡Detrás de ti!
Translation: “Watch out! Behind you!”

9- Durante

• Time (“during” )

Example: No te puedes levantar durante la ceremonia.
Translation: “You can’t stand up during the ceremony.”

10- En

• Location (“in”/”at”/”on” )

Example: Estoy en casa.
Translation: “I’m at home.”

11- Encima de

• Location (“on top of” )

Example: Hay un lápiz roto encima de la libreta.
Translation: “There is a broken pencil on top of the notebook.”

12- Enfrente de

• Location (“in front of” )

Example: Van a abrir una biblioteca enfrente de tu casa.
Translation: “They’re opening a library in front of your house.”

13- Entre

• Location (“between” )

Example: Mi casa está entre dos árboles.
Translation: “My house is between two trees.”

• Time (“between” )

Example: Cenamos entre las ocho y las nueve.
Translation: “We eat dinner between eight and nine.”

• Relation (“among” )

Example: Entre otras cosas, me gusta leer.
Translation: “Among other things, I like reading.”

14- Hacia

• Location (“toward” )

Example: Voy hacia el mercado.
Translation: “I’m heading toward the market.”

• Time (“around” )

Example: Nos vemos hacia las dos.
Translation: “I’ll see you around two.”

15- Hasta

• Time (“until” )

Example: Mi hermano vivió con nosotros hasta que se casó.
Translation: “My brother lived with us until he got married.”

• Location (“until” )

Example: ¿Nadamos hasta el final de la piscina?
Translation: “Should we swim until the end of the swimming pool?”

16- Para

• Relation (“for” )

Example: Esta tarta es para el cumpleaños de mi madre.
Translation: “This cake is for my mom’s birthday.”

• Purpose (“to” )

Example: Estoy estudiando para ser arquitecto.
Translation: “I am studying to be an architect.”

17- Por

• Relation (“for” )

Example: Lo hice por ti.
Translation: “I did it for you.”

• Relation (“by” )

Example: Escrito por Ana María Matute.
Translation: “Written by Ana María Matute.”

18- Según

• Relation (“according to” )

Example: Según nos ha dicho Juana, no te encontrabas bien.
Translation: “According to what Juana told us, you weren’t feeling well.”

19- Sin

• Relation (“without” )

Example: No sé qué haría sin ti.
Translation: “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

20- Sobre

• Location (“on” )

Example: Siempre dejamos las llaves sobre la mesa.
Translation: “We always leave the keys on the table.”

• Relation (“about” )

Example: ¿Te puedo hacer una pregunta sobre Carla?
Translation: “Can I ask you something about Carla?”

21- Tras

• Time (“after” )

Example: No fue la misma tras la muerte de su marido.
Translation: “She wasn’t the same after her husband’s death.”

• Location (“behind” )

Example: Escóndete tras la puerta.
Translation: “Hide behind the door.”

22- Versus

• Relation (“versus” )

Example: ¿Vas a ver el partido del Barça versus el Real Madrid?
Translation: “Are you going to watch the Barça versus Real Madrid match?”

23- Vía

• Relation (“through” )

Example: Te contactaré vía correo electrónico o teléfono.
Translation: “I will contact you through email or phone.”

3. So… When Do We Use Them?

To sum it up, we’ve decided to organize the previous list in a few very basic groups. Keep in mind that some prepositions might be included in more than one list. And don’t worry, we’ll remind you of their meanings.

Here’s a rundown of Spanish prepositions usage based on category:

1- Prepositions of Location

First of all, here’s the group that has the most prepositions. These are the Spanish prepositions of location:

• Bajo (“under” )
• De (“from” )
• Delante de (“in front of” )
• Desde (“from” )
• Detrás de (“behind” )
• En (“in”/”at”/”on” )
• Encima de (“on top of” )
• Enfrente de (“in front of” )
• Entre (“between” )
• Hacia (“toward” )
• Hasta (“until” )
• Sobre (“on” )
• Tras (“behind” )

2- Prepositions of Relation

This second group of prepositions isn’t as crowded as the last one, but the words still have very varied meanings:

• Con (“with” )
• Contra (“against” )
• De (“of”/possessive “’s” )
• Entre (“among” )
• Para (“for” )
• Por (“for” or “by” )
• Según (“according to” )
• Sin (“without” )
• Sobre (“about” )
• Versus (“versus” )
• Vía (“through” )

3- Prepositions of Time

The third group of prepositions, the ones that refer to time, is another very important one:

• A (“at” )
• Desde (“since” )
• Durante (“during” )
• Entre (“between” )
• Hacia (“around” )
• Hasta (“until” )
• Tras (“after” )

4- Other Prepositions

This last group is only formed, in our opinion, by the next two prepositions. It’s true we could have made them fit into the other groups, but we didn’t think they were completely appropriate there.

For example, one of the meanings of the preposition a is “motion,” which is related to location, but isn’t quite the same. The other meaning of a that’s included here (as well as the preposition para) could have been included in the group of prepositions of relation, but once again, we decided they were a bit different.

• A (“to” or “for” )
• Para (“to” )

4. Change of Forms

Something else you should know is that there are a couple of prepositions that, when followed by a definite article, join the article and become only one word. These are de + el (del) and a + el (al). Contracting these words isn’t optional, so you must remember them!

Here are a couple of examples:

• Este es el coche del padre de María. → “This is María’s father’s car.”
• Mamá, ¡me voy al lago! → “Mom, I’m going to the lake!”

In some regions of Spain, it’s also common to pronounce para + el together, as in pal. However, this contraction is very informal, so we don’t suggest you use it unless you’re talking to your close friends, or to people from one of these regions.

5. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn More Spanish

Alright, we know prepositions aren’t the funnest thing to learn in a language, but we’re actually quite sure that Spanish prepositions are way easier than English ones.

However, if you thought this wasn’t enough, or if you still need some Spanish prepositions help, there’s much more you can learn at SpanishPod101.com! You’ll find articles of all sorts on our blog, from basic articles such as the classic How to Say “Hello” in Spanish to vocabulary on the Tomatina festivities! You don’t know what they are? Make sure you check out our article! And stay tuned for more articles in the future, designed to help you master the Spanish language with ease.

Before you go, let us know in the comments how you feel about Spanish prepositions now, and if there’s anything you’re still uncertain about. We look forward to hearing from you!