Regular vs. Irregular Verbs in Spanish – Lesson 23

Regular and irregular verbs: what’s the difference?

This yellow lesson is a bit different. Instead of learning a new verb, we look at something you’ve heard me mention a few times: regular and irregular verbs. What are they, and how do they work in Spanish?

It’s not a long lesson, but it’s an important one to understand. So grab your notebook!

The 4 verbs we know so far

Let’s start with the verbs we already learned, in the yo (I) form:

Verb	Meaning	Yo form
querer	to want	quiero
tener	to have	tengo
ser	to be (characteristics)	soy
estar	to be (states)	estoy

The stem and the ending

Every verb has two parts: the stem (the beginning) and the ending. When you conjugate, the ending changes depending on who you’re talking about. Look at querer:

Pronoun	Stem	Ending
yo	quier	-o
tú	quier	-es
él / ella / usted	quier	-e
nosotros / nosotras	quer	-emos

The stem stays (roughly) the same, and the ending changes. Tener does the same thing: teng-o, tien-es, tien-e, ten-emos. There’s a clear pattern.

Regular verbs: they follow the rules

In Spanish, there are rules for how verbs behave. A regular verb follows those rules perfectly: the stem stays exactly the same, and only the ending changes.

A good example is hablar (to speak), which you saw in the introduction to verbs:

Pronoun	hablar (to speak)
yo	hablo
tú	hablas
él / ella / usted	habla
nosotros / nosotras	hablamos
vosotros / vosotras	habláis
ellos / ellas / ustedes	hablan

The stem habl- never changes. That’s a perfectly regular verb.

So are querer and tener regular?

Honestly, not completely. Their endings follow the rules, but their stem changes a bit: quier- becomes quer- with nosotros, and tener goes from teng- to tien- to ten-. So they’re actually slightly irregular.

Irregular verbs: they do their own thing

Now look at ser:

Pronoun	ser (to be)
yo	soy
tú	eres
él / ella / usted	es
nosotros / nosotras	somos
vosotros / vosotras	sois
ellos / ellas / ustedes	son

From soy to eres to es to somos… there’s no stem that stays the same. The whole verb changes. That’s a perfect example of an irregular verb: a verb that doesn’t follow the standard rules.

Another example: ir (to go)

Here’s a sneak peek of a verb we’ll learn later: ir, which means “to go”.

Pronoun	ir (to go)
yo	voy
tú	vas
él / ella / usted	va
nosotros / nosotras	vamos
vosotros / vosotras	vais
ellos / ellas / ustedes	van

The infinitive is ir, but the conjugations look nothing like it: voy, vas, va… And voy even ends in -oy instead of -o. Very irregular!

But look closer: after voy, there’s a stem (v-) with normal endings: v-as, v-a, v-amos, v-ais, v-an. So in a way, it’s half regular, half irregular.

Half regular, half irregular? Still irregular

This happens a lot in Spanish: verbs that aren’t completely regular, but not super irregular either. Somewhere in the middle, like querer, tener and ir.

There’s no special name for these “half irregular” verbs. As soon as a verb breaks the rules even a little bit, we simply call it irregular. So there are just two categories:

• Regular verbs: follow the rules completely (like hablar).
• Irregular verbs: break the rules, a little bit or a lot (like querer, tener, ser, estar and ir).

What are the rules, then?

In this lesson I explained that regular verbs follow rules, but not exactly what those rules are. That’s on purpose: I just want you to understand what I mean when I say a verb is “regular” or “irregular”. In a later lesson, we’ll dive into the rules for -ar, -er and -ir verbs.

Practice: regular or irregular?

Think about it, then click to check.

1. hablar: hablo, hablas, habla, hablamos…

Regular: the stem habl- never changes.

2. ser: soy, eres, es, somos…

Irregular: there’s no stem that stays the same.

3. querer: quiero, quieres, queremos…

Irregular (slightly): the stem changes from quier- to quer-.

4. ir: voy, vas, va, vamos…

Irregular: the forms look nothing like “ir”.

5. tener: tengo, tienes, tenemos…

Irregular (slightly): teng-, tien-, ten-.

6. What do we call the beginning part of a verb?

The stem.

Quiz: regular vs irregular verbs

8 questions to check if it clicked.

Frequently asked questions

Are most Spanish verbs regular or irregular?

Most Spanish verbs are actually regular. But many of the most common verbs (ser, estar, tener, ir, querer…) are irregular, which is why it can feel like everything is irregular at the start.

Do I need to memorize irregular verbs?

Yes, but don’t worry: you’ll use them so often that they’ll stick. That’s why we’re learning the most important ones one by one in this course.

Before you go to the next lesson

Now you know what I mean when I say a verb is regular or irregular. Remember: regular verbs follow the rules, irregular verbs break them, a little or a lot. We’ll learn the actual rules in a later lesson. ¡Hasta la próxima!