Ultimate Guide to the Spanish Subjunctive. The Present

In this Ultimate Guide to the Spanish Subjunctive today we’re going to learn how to build the present subjunctive of regular ar, er and ir verbs.

In other posts we’ll learn when to use the present subjunctive, as well as the irregular verbs in this tense.

Of all the Spanish subjunctive tenses the one you should aim to know best is the one we’re learning here. The present tense.

As you’ll see throughout this blog, it comes up frequently in both conversation and in writing, even at a basic level.

Mastering the present subjunctive of regular verbs is easy. Mastering when to use it is less so, but I’ll do my utmost best to help you become familiar with this essential tense.

The Spanish subjunctive: ar. The present

The Spanish subjunctive: er. The present

The Spanish subjunctive: ir. The present

The Spanish subjunctive. A few useful notes

The endings in bold in the examples above are the letters shared by ALL regular verbs in the present subjunctive.

Notice that the first and third persons are always identical.

Notice also that er and ir verbs have the same six endings.

Let’s now compare the present indicative and subjunctive forms:

Comparing the Spanish subjunctive and indicative forms will help you remember them more easily.

As you see in the examples above, the present subjunctive forms are remarkably similar to those of the present indicative.

The ar verb present indicative forms are characterized by the vowel a. In the present subjunctive it’s the vowel e that appears in all six forms.

The er verb present indicative forms are characterized by the vowel e. In the present subjunctive it’s the vowel a that appears in all six forms.

The ir verb present indicative forms are characterized by the vowels e and i. In the present subjunctive it’s the vowel a that appears in all six forms.

Notice that the ar verb endings for the present indicative are the same as the er and ir verb endings for the present subjunctive, with the only exception of the yo form.

Notice also that the er verb endings for the present indicative are the same as the ar verb endings for the present subjunctive, with the only exception of the yo form.

These notes will help you master the Spanish subjunctive forms fast and efficiently.

The Spanish subjunctive. Building the present

To build the regular verb forms in this tense, like in the present indicative, all you need to do is remove the ar, er and ir from their infinitives. Then add the endings in bold. And that’s it.

I’m going to give you three other regular Spanish verbs to illustrate this. The three verbs are: trabajar, beber and subir.

First we drop the letters ‘ar’ from ‘trabajar’, ‘er’ from ‘beber’ and ‘ir’ from subir.

Then we attach the present subjunctive endings to ‘trabaj’, ‘beb’ and ‘sub’.

Let’s see the six present subjunctive forms for these three new verbs.

The Spanish subjunctive. Present tense drill

Now that you’re familiar with the present subjunctive, can you build the six forms of the following regular Spanish verbs in this tense?

• necesitar :: to need
• comer :: to eat
• recibir :: to receive

Type your answers in the comment box below and I’ll give you your score!

You can learn the Spanish verbs easily, including the subjunctive, with this highly recommended Spanish verb course with audio material.

You can find more tips on how to learn the Spanish subjunctive fast with my study guide How to Learn Spanish.