conjugation changes i.e. volar/vuelo?

Question

I do not understand why words when being conjugated actually change spelling such as volar/vuelo, contar/cuento, pedir/pido?

Answer 1

As stated above, in many cases they just do :/

However, there is a more logical answer in some cases. It has to do with how the word sounds when spoken. Changing the stem (in certain cases) can help to keep the vowel sounds within the word and their conjugational vowels from running together. This is merely for convenience when speaking the words.

Having stem changes can also prevent a conjugated verb from being the same as a noun. Consider "jugar". In the yo form, it is "juego". If the u didn't change to a ue, then in the yo form, it would be "jugo", which means juice. In a different conjugation (jugar -> jugaba) the stem doesn't change because it doesn't conflict with any other spanish words.

Hope this helps!

• thank yo both for your knowledge. I am making learning Spanish much harder than what it really is. Common sense goes a long way!! Thank you again. - adecker Jan 26, 2010

Answer 2

Why does "go" change to "went", "eat" to "ate", "write" to "wrote" in English? The simple answer is "Because they do." The (slightly more complex answer) is "For the same reasons that most languages contain irregularities."