Verbs

10 facts about Spanish verbs with links to grammar lessons that students of Spanish will find useful.

Although Spanish gerunds are frequently used along with forms of the verb 'estar' to form a progressive verb form, they area also often used alone.

Definition of 'active voice' as the term is used in Spanish and English grammar.

Lesson on the use of transitive and intransitive verbs in Spanish.

How do you say 'let' in Spanish? The answer involves translating for meaning, not word-for-word.

There is no Spanish verb that has the same meaning as the English auxiliary verb 'might.' So when translating, you need to figure out first what is meant.

Definition of 'impersonal verb' with examples how such verbs are used in Spanish and English.

When translating to Spanish, you can't translate all English words ending in '-ing' the same way.

Auxiliary verbs are less commonly used in Spanish than they are in English.

Glossary definition of 'transitive verb' as it is used in both Spanish and English grammar

Glossary definition of 'transitive verb' as it is used in both Spanish and English grammar

Past participles are words, common in both Spanish and English, that have characteristics of verbs and adjectives. They are used to form the perfect tenses.

Reflexive verbs are those used in sentences where the subject is acting on itself.

In Spanish, which verb tense and mood to use following si (the word for "if") depends on the likelihood of the condition happening.

A verb is used reflexively when the subject of the verb is also its object.

Past participles, which exist in both Spanish and English, are a verb form that can be used as an adjective and sometimes a noun.

A participle can function as either a verb or an adjective.

Many Spanish verbs can be used in either reflexive form or not, but when they do they may change meaning. This lesson covers some of the most common such verbs.

One common use of reflexive verbs in Spanish is to indicate a change in emotion.

This grammar lesson lists several verbs that can be followed by the gerund and how to use them. They include continuar, seguir, ir, andar, venir.

The common ways of saying in Spanish that someone has to or ought to do something is to uses the verb deber or the phrase tener que. Here is an explanation of how they are used.

The participle is one type of verb form that can also be used as an adjective.

Learn how auxiliary verbs are used in Spanish, and how their use differs from English.

Here are three common ways to indicate intent.

A Spanish sentence such as "Se me olvidó el tomate" can be confusing to understand at first, because they are structured so differently than anything they say in English.

The verb forms that are the equivalent of the "-ing" form in English are known as present participles or gerunds.

The past participle is used with auxiliary verbs and also can be used as an adjective.

These sets of verb pairs are often easily confused by Spanish students.

It is common in English to separate an auxiliary verb from the verb is it associated with. However, this practice should normally not be duplicated in Spanish.

The auxiliary English verb "would" has several different ways it can be translated to Spanish.

Learn what the active voice is and how it is different than the passive voice.

Learn what the passive voice is and how it is different than the active voice.

A number of Spanish verbs are used in such a way that the verb's object is usually translated as the subject in English.

Glossary definition of 'gerund' as the term is used the grammar of Spanish and English

There are a number of instances where Spanish uses a different person of verb than English speakers might expect. These include cases where a person is referring to himself or herself, where someone is referred to by "it" in English, and where the speaker is including himself or herself as the subject of a sentence.

By using se, it is possible to indicate that some kind of action is performed without saying who or what performs it.

Defective verbs are those verbs that don't have complete conjugation sets. The term also is used sometimes to include verbs such as gustar that typically are used in the third person only.

English adjectives based on verbs and ending in '-ing' can be translated into Spanish in a variety of ways. One of them is the use of adjectival present participles, which typically end in '-ante' or '-ente.'

In Spanish, gerunds can be used with 'ver' and other verbs of perception to indicate what other people or things are seen doing.

A look at the subtle distinctions between 'caer' and 'caerse.'

Answer to the question: If I know the Spanish verb, can I predict what the noun might be?

Definition of 'verb' with clarifying examples in Spanish and English.

A look at some not-so-common Spanish verbs with unexpected meanings when they are used reflexively.