Stem changing verbs

 In Spanish, every verb has two parts: a stem and an ending.

1. What are the three Spanish infinitive* verb endings? __________________________

*An infinitive is the verb meaning without a subject. In English infinitives have the
word to in front of them, like “to eat”, “to buy”, “to go” etc.

 When you conjugate a regular verb you just drop the infinitive ending and
add a new ending to show who the subject is that is doing the verb. The
stem doesn’t change.
2. A verb’s stem is the part of the verb that is not the ending. Circle the stem of the
following verbs.

comer nadar vivir tener querer caminar

hablo preparamos cantan tomas

 When you conjugate a stem-changing verb you drop the infinitive ending
and add the new ending like with regular verbs, BUT in every form but the
nosotros form, the stem changes.

3. Querer is a very common stem-changing verb that means _____________.

It’s stem changes from quer to quier. This is called a e-ie stem change.

The other kinds of stem changes are e-i and o-ue

4. Fill in the new stem for each form. Remember, the nosotros/as (and
vosotros/as) form does not change.

singluar plural
1st Yo qu____ro Nosotros/as qu___remos
2nd Tú qu____res Vosotros/as qu____réis
3rd El/ella/usted qu____re Ellos/ellas/ustedes qu______ren

The shape made by the verbs that change kind of looks like a boot!