by Steve Kallenberg

Created on: July 02, 2009

For all of you out there who are hoping to learn a little bit about the basics of how Spanish verbs work, here is a little lesson on "quemar" and the typical "AR" ending. Quemar means "to burn or to be burning."

We'll start with the present tense. Spanish verbs have six different conjugations based on the subject of the sentence. These subjects are I, you (informal), he/she/you (formal), we, you all (informal used mostly in Spain), and they/you all (formal).

The first step to conjugating the verb "AR" no matter what subject you have is to drop the "ar" from the end of the verb. From there we add the various endings according to what you want to say. If you want to say "I burn," you add an "o" to the end and make it "quemo." For "you burn," add "as" to the end and make it "quemas." Adding simply an "a" on the end for "quema" gives you the proper ending for saying "he burns" or "she burns" or "you- very important person I respect a lot- burn." Add "amos" to make it "quemamos," "we burn." If you are in Spain and you want to say "you all (informal, such as for friends) burn, add "ais" to the end with an accent over the "a" so the term looks like "quemis." And finally, for the "they burn/ you all (formal) burn" ending add "an" to the end so it reads "queman."

I know that sometimes learning a language seems a lot to handle no matter how much time you spend or how quickly or slowly you are progressing. But if you practice simple conjugations like this, I promise you that you will get better. Practice with regular "ar" verbs like hablar (to talk), bailar (to dance), y cantar (to sing). Practice conjugating them with each of the six different endings we learned. Remember to first remove the "ar" ending and then add one of the conjugations. Here is a review of the conjugations for "quemar" in case you learn better by seeing it in chart form:

I burn- yo quemo

You burn- tu quemas

He/she/you (formal) burns- el/ella/usted quema

We burn- nosotros quemamos

You all (informal, Spain) burn- vosotros quemais

They/you all (formal) burn- ellos/ellas/ustedes queman

Learning how to conjugate basic verbs is probably one of the first lessons that you should learn after correct pronunciation of the letters in the alphabet, which is often overlooked. Please don't overlook that.

Hopefully this helps you a little bit in your quest to learn the Spanish language. Buena suerte!

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