Lesson 1.4 - Food and Regular -er Conjugations

Question

I am still trying to understand regular -er conjugations. Can anyone explain them succinctly? The recall section doesn't really help as there is too much confusion between I / She / He + We / They.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I kind of understand the emos suffix = we

Answer 1

Both English and Spanish languages have verb conjugations. For now, consider the similarities with English. Consider the verb "to sing", or "cantar", a regular verb in Spanish

In English

I sing (first person), you sing (second person), he/she/it sings (third person)

Here is a link to the conjugation page for "cantar"

link text

In Spanish (I'll leave the subject pronoun in for now)

yo canto (first person), tu cantas (second person), el/ella canta (third person)

Spanish also contains a formal second person (usted) designation that most often uses the third person conjugate. That is different from English.

That is the simplest I can describe it. Maybe another member can break it down further.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Samian:

 

To conjugate a verb, determine its stem, or root. The stem of the verb holds the meaning of the verb. To find the stem, remove the infinitive ending "-er".

 

To end of the stem, add the appropriate ending depending on who the subject of the verb is. The ending indicates who is doing the action at what point in time. The ending will also depend on which verb group the verb belongs to (-ar, -er, -ir). The endings for the "er" verbs are shown in the following chart.

 

In re Conjugating Regular “Er” verbs
Singular.............................. Plural.
Yo ..................“o”............ Nosotros “emos”
Tú ................ “es”........... Vosotros “éis”
Él, Ella, Usted “e” ............Ellos/Ellas, Ustedes “en”

 

If you don't mind my perhaps presumptuous suggestion, now might be a good time to review the conjugations for all ("ar", "er", and "ir") regular verbs. Perhaps the easiest way to do a review without a lot of other distraction is to review Paralee Whitmires Reference Page about present tense verbs. You can focus your reading on the regular verbs and save reviewing the irregular verbs for another time.

You will find the Reference Page here ----> Present Tense Regular & Other.

 

Best wishes in your studies.

 

Muchos saludos/Best regards,

Moe

Answer 3

I remember that it took me a while to understand how the dialogue balloons were used in the flashcards. You need to be very familiar with the flashcards before the other parts of the lesson will be easy. The dialogue balloon is the white thing with a triangle shape that points to one of the people in the picture. When there is only one person and the dialogue balloon points to that person, the conjugation is first person singular. When there are two people and the dialogue balloon points to both of them, the conjugation is first person plural

1st person singular --> I in English, yo in Spanish

1st person plural --> we in English, nosotros in Spanish

When there is a person in the background pointing to a person in the foreground, the conjugation is second person singular familiar. There is no dialogue balloon. In later lessons there will be more than one person the background person is pointing to and the conjugation will be second person plural familiar.

2nd person singular familiar --> you in English, tú in Spanish

2nd person plural familiar --> you in English, vosotros in Spanish

When there is no dialogue balloon and no one in the background pointing, the conjugations are second person singular formal and third person singular as well as the third person plural

2nd person singular formal --> you in English, usted in Spanish

3rd person singular --> he, she, it in English, él, ella, in Spanish

3rd person plural --> They in English, ustedes in Spanish