Kilo Lingo

Spanish · Chapter 19 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer

The present subjunctive: forms

How to build it - the yo-form stem, the opposite-vowel endings, and the six irregulars (sea, vaya, haya, sepa, de, este). A sister lesson covers when to use it.

The short version

Build the subjunctive off the yo-form

The machinery is almost mechanical. Take the yo-form of the present indicative, knock off the final -o, and add the opposite family's endings: -ar verbs take the e-set, -er and -ir verbs take the a-set. Because the stem comes from the yo-form, most 'irregular' verbs are not irregular here at all. Tengo gives tenga, hago gives haga, conozco gives conozca.

hable, coma, viva

(that) I speak, I eat, I live

That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.

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Lesson 8 of 22 in this chapter

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