Infinitives

In English, all infinitives include the word 'to', e.g. to speak, to eat, to live.  

However, Spanish has three verb types or conjugations.   All Spanish infinitives end in -AR, -ER, or -IR, for example, hablar = to speak, comer = to eat and vivir = to live.

When you look a verb up in your Spanish-English dictionary you will find it listed in the infinitive.  

In all likelihood, you will need to change the infinitive that you find in the dictionary to the part of the verb you wish to use (in grammatical terminology, you 'conjugate' the verb), e.g. hablar = to speak but hablo español = I speak Spanish and mis padres hablaron con mi profesor de español = my parents spoke to my Spanish teacher.

Practice exercises

1. 30 useful AR verbs - Match the Spanish to the English.  (Hot Potatoes)
2. 30 useful AR verbs - Crossword.  (Hot Potatoes)
3. 30 useful AR verbs - Fill in the gap with the appropriate infinitive.  (Hot Potatoes)
4. 12 useful ER & IR verbs - Match the Spanish to the English.  (Hot Potatoes)
5. 12 useful ER & IR verbs - Crossword.  (Hot Potatoes)