Present indicative (regular verbs)

The present indicative is the base tense of Spanish. It expresses what someone does regularly, what is generally true, or what is scheduled to happen in the near future. Regular verbs follow a completely predictable pattern: remove the infinitive ending (-ar, -er, or -ir) to get the stem, then add the endings that match the subject.

• Habitual actions. Things that happen repeatedly or as a routine: Todos los días como fruta. (Every day I eat fruit.)

• General truths. Facts that are always or normally true: El agua no tiene color. (Water has no colour.)

• Near-future scheduled events. Fixed plans treated as already arranged: El tren sale a las ocho. (The train leaves at eight.)

Drop the infinitive ending to find the stem, then attach the endings below. The three verb classes share the same endings for yo (-o) and ellos/ellas (-n). The -er and -ir classes differ only in the nosotros and vosotros forms.

• Applying -ar endings to -er verbs. The tú ending for -ar verbs is -as, but for -er verbs it is -es. Write tú comes, not «tú comas» (which is the present subjunctive).

• Confusing nosotros endings for -er and -ir verbs. The -er nosotros ending is -emos; the -ir ending is -imos. «Vivemos» does not exist — the correct form is vivimos.

• Dropping the -s on the tú form. In English, most verb forms are identical across persons (I live, you live, they live). In Spanish, tú always takes a final -s: tú vives, never «tú vive».