Why does spelling change from pedir to pidiendo

Question

to ask = Pedi. asking = pidiendo

• To ask is to pedir in the infinitive form. - Vince_Peña Oct 3, 2009

Answer 1

Because languages weren't made in a lab.

I'd love it if there were no irregular verbs in Spanish. In fact, if I was creating a language I would rework the whole tense system and streamline it so there were vastly fewer words to learn.

But languages aren't invented by anyone, they form naturally. Look at how wildly slang changes a language. Now imagine that happening in a time when practically nobody could read or right, so there was very little to standardize language among the masses. They weren't approaching it from the point of view of changing and 'e' to an 'i' in a certain tense, they just had one word for a certain tense and a slightly different word for a different tense.

It could have happened because someone slurred a word thousands of years ago. It could have happened because two villages had slightly different dialects, then they merged and mixed them. Or for any number of other historical reasons.

Answer 2

Stem changing ir verbs have the same stem change in the 3rd person prederite as they do in the gerund and subjuctive past and conditional tenses.

Answer 3

Uncle Tom, some verbds are irregular and they don't have the same spelling to all the persons. You have to check the verbs conjugation list to check it out.

Answer 4

Because if it didn't, it would be the same word, but they're different words with different meanings so they have to be spelt differently.

• "Pedi" would not be the same word as "pediendo". He's asking why some words are stem changing even though most are not. - Jason_Bryant Oct 3, 2009