Go To Verbs???

Question

I am trying to figure out the conjugations , but I was wandering if there were any rules to help remember weather it was a go to verb or a reg. verb. For exp. I was conjugationing the verb pensar and I forgot about the boot and about changing the e to an I is there anything that you could tell me just in case I don't have a book with me or do I just need to try to remember which words, Sorry if I sound stupid. Thanks for any help you could give me. Diana Coleman

Answer 1

Very quickly you will begin to see patterns in these verbs, and you'll often even know that a verb needs a stem change without ever having seen the verb before. It becomes intuitive, and this is difficult for all students at first. And if you forget the stem change, we'll still understand you, so don't worry too much -- it just comes naturally as you go. (There are 3 or so verbs that I know of that I still can't remember how to conjugate, and Spanish is my first language ).

Answer 2

If you have a smartphone I recommend downloading some sort of conjugation app, that helps a lot. If you have an Android phone I use Verbos Españoles by Robert Muth. It's free. If you forget a conjugation you just look it up.

Sadly, Irregular verbs just have to memorized. And don't try to learn all the tenses at once, it probably won't stick anyway. Learn conjugations in combination with the verb tense you're studying/practicing. ie. If your only working on the present tense, just learn the present tense. When you start working on the past tense, then learn the past tense conjugations.

And I always recommend the Verbarrator.instead of trying to memorize stuff the old fashioned way. You learn the verb conjugations in context, hear the word out loud and pick up some vocabulary along the way.

Answer 3

First of all : you don't sound stupid. This is a difficulty for all Spanish learners. When you learn a new verb (on in reviewing) you should always learn (review) the Present, Preterite, Imperfect, and Future Indicative Mood and the Imperative (command forms) and the present participle. The more verbs you learn this way, the more the vowel shifts and changes will become natural.

I hope this helps.