Spanish I

Unit 6: Present Tense, Weather and Days

Learning Targets

1. I can read/write/listen and speak in the present tense to talk about things people do at school, home, and during free time.

2. I can do #1 by learning to conjugate regular verbs in the present tense.

3. I can compare and contrast "infinitive" verbs and "regular" verbs.

4. I can say the days of the week and what I do on those days

5. I can say what I do "when/if" there's a certain type of weather.

14 point Days of the week Quiz (Gold)

¿Qué haces?

What do you do?

Remember that these are the activities we learned in the last unit.

Grammar note:

Infinitive verbs and Conjugation

Both English and Spanish have infinitive verbs. A verb is a word that shows action (run, jump, study). An infinitive verb is a verb in its natural form.

  • In English, this form starts with "to".

  • In Spanish, infinitive verbs end in either "ar", "er" or "ir".

We can't use infinitive verbs when we say what people do.

  • Wrong: Sara to ride her bike every afternoon.

  • Right: Sara rides her bike every afternoon.

Changing a verb from its infinitive form into a usable form is called CONJUGATION. We can conjugate verbs from the infinitive into the past, present or future tenses.

You already learned that Spanish infinitives are divided into AR, ER and IR categories. In your notes, please re-organize the verbs (just the verbs) from this lesson into sections.

AR verbs

Add this verb to your AR list: Enviar (to send). You should have 40 AR verbs.

ER verbs

Add these verbs to your ER list: Hacer (to do/make), Conocer (to know someone), Saber (to know information). You should have 10 ER verbs.

IR verbs

Add these verbs to your IR list. Abrir (to open), Vivir (to live), Compartir (To share). You should have 6 IR verbs.

Before you can conjugate with confidence, it's important to understand a little about the process.

Spanish verbs come in two pieces: A stem and an Ending.

Hablar --> Habl // ar

Comer --> Com // er

Vivir --> Viv // ir

If a verb is regular, we reuse the stem to keep the basic meaning of the verb and we change the ending to say WHO is doing the action and if it happened, happens, or will happen.

Look at all these possible ways to write about talking. We know they're all about talking because they all use the stem HABL.

hablar, hablando, hablo, hablé, hablaron, hablamos, hablan, hablado, hablarás, hablaste (and there are so many more)

Grammar Notes : Regular Verbs

While learning Spanish, you will come across the phrase "Regular verb" frequently. Hablar, comer and vivir are all regular verbs. Ser and Estar are not regular verbs. They are irregular.

So, what does it mean for a verb to be "regular"???

You are about to learn a set of rules to help you conjugate your verbs into usable present tense forms. If a verb follows the rules, it is "regular." If it breaks the rules, it is not.

You need 3 colored pens. They should be colors you haven't used yet in your verb organization chart.

One of the verbs in your IR verb list is NOT regular. We will write "Irregular" next to it in parenthesis. This will remind us that we cannot apply the rules we are about to learn to this verb. Can you guess which verb it is?

One of the verbs in your AR verb list is a stem changing verb, which we won't learn about until another unit. This means that we will have to avoid this verb until we learn to properly conjugate it or we may confuse the people we are speaking to. Find "Jugar" and write (ue) next to it. When we conjugate this verb, some forms look like this: Yo juego, Ella juega.

5 of the verbs in our ER and IR lists are MOSTLY regular. They follow all the rules EXCEPT in the YO form. In the Yo form, they break the rules. Write (YO) next to these verbs: ver, hacer, conocer, saber, and salir.

Be sure to understand and be able to explain and provide an example of the terms

  • infinitive verb

  • regular verb

  • conjugation

  • stem

  • ending

Use the drop down menu to go to Unit 6, page 2.

Present Indicative Regular AR, ER, and IR verbs

AR, ER and IR regular verbs

This is the whole lesson if you are ready for it. We are going to chunk it in class, though.