{"id":144871,"date":"2016-03-28T12:27:24","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T16:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/learn\/spanish-stem-changing-verbs\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T00:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T05:38:08","slug":"spanish-stem-changing-verbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/spanish\/spanish-stem-changing-verbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Stem-changing Verbs in Spanish (Plus Common Ones)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spanish stem-changing verbs don’t follow the normal conjugation rules.\u00a0<\/strong>Like irregular verbs<\/a>, you’ll hear them in casual conversations all the time\u2014they seem confusing, but once you know them, they’re easy to use.<\/p>\n

After reading this guide, you’ll be able to identify, conjugate and correctly use stem-changing verbs in Spanish.<\/p>\n

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[fluentu-toc]<\/p>\n

What Are Spanish Stem-changing Verbs?<\/h2>\n

Have you ever wondered why the second-person conjugation for the verb tener<\/em> (to have) is t\u00fa tie<\/strong>nes<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Because tener<\/em> is a stem-changing verb, even though it ends in –er<\/em>, it doesn’t follow the same rules as normal –er<\/em> verbs.<\/p>\n

Spanish infinitive verbs consist of two parts: a stem<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0an ending<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

For example, the regular verb hablar<\/em> (to speak) consists of the stem\u00a0habl-\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>and the ending\u00a0-ar<\/em>.<\/p>\n

To conjugate hablar<\/em> in the present tense, you take the stem and add the correct ending (o, a, as, amos, \u00e1is, an).<\/em><\/p>\n

Stem-changing verbs\u2014like\u00a0tener<\/em>\u2014don’t follow this pattern. Instead, they have slightly different endings.<\/p>\n

There are three basic types of stem-changing verbs:<\/p>\n