The regular -er endings
Strip the -er off the infinitive, glue on the ending for the person. That's it.
| Person | Ending | comer (to eat) |
|---|---|---|
| yo | -o | como |
| tú | -es | comes |
| él / ella / usted | -e | come |
| nosotros / nosotras | -emos | comemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | -éis | coméis |
| ellos / ellas | -en | comen |
Sample sentence: Como pan todos los días (I eat bread every day).
The endings are nearly identical to the -ir class. The only differences in the present indicative are the nosotros and vosotros forms (-emos / -éis for -er, -imos / -ís for -ir). Learn the -er rhythm and you've almost learned -ir as well.
Stem-changing -er verbs
A chunk of -er verbs change their stem vowel in every form except nosotros and vosotros. This is the so-called "boot" or "1-2-3-6" rule: the change appears in yo, tú, él/ella, and ellos/ellas, but not in the nosotros / vosotros forms whose stress falls on the ending.
Two patterns dominate in -er:
e becomes ie: entender, perder, querer, encender, defender.
| Person | entender (to understand) |
|---|---|
| yo | entiendo |
| tú | entiendes |
| él / ella / usted | entiende |
| nosotros / nosotras | entendemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | entendéis |
| ellos / ellas | entienden |
o becomes ue: volver, poder, mover, doler, llover, soler.
| Person | volver (to return) |
|---|---|
| yo | vuelvo |
| tú | vuelves |
| él / ella / usted | vuelve |
| nosotros / nosotras | volvemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | volvéis |
| ellos / ellas | vuelven |
Endings are still the regular -er endings. Only the stem vowel shifts.
The yo-form irregulars
This is the defining feature of the -er class. A long list of high-frequency -er verbs are regular in every person except yo, where they take an oddball form. Memorise the yo and the rest of the conjugation falls into place around it.
| Infinitive | yo form | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
| tener | tengo | -go (and e>ie elsewhere) |
| poner | pongo | -go |
| suponer | supongo | -go (same as poner) |
| mantener | mantengo | -go (same as tener) |
| saber | sé | unique |
| ver | veo | extra -e- before the -o |
| haber | he | unique (auxiliary) |
| conocer | conozco | -zco |
| parecer | parezco | -zco |
The -go and -zco patterns are productive: any new -er verb you meet ending in -tener, -poner, -cer after a vowel is almost certainly going to follow the same trick. The other persons usually take the regular -er endings (with any stem change layered on top, where the verb is also a stem-changer, as with tener and suponer).
Heavily irregular: poder, saber, haber
Three -er verbs deserve their own card because they're everywhere and they don't quite fit any clean rule.
poder (to be able to) is an o>ue stem-changer but otherwise behaves: puedo, puedes, puede, podemos, podéis, pueden.
saber (to know a fact) has the irregular yo sé and is regular thereafter: sé, sabes, sabe, sabemos, sabéis, saben.
haber (auxiliary "to have") is wholly irregular and is used almost exclusively to form compound tenses (he comido = I have eaten): he, has, ha, hemos, habéis, han. The impersonal form hay means "there is / there are" and is the form you'll meet first: hay un perro (there is a dog), hay tres perros (there are three dogs). Same word for singular and plural.
The verbs in this curriculum
The full searchable list is at the bottom of the page. The behaviour groupings to keep in mind:
- o > ue stem-changers: volver, poder.
- e > ie stem-changers: entender, perder.
- Yo-form irregulars only (rest of the paradigm is regular): ver (yo veo), saber (yo sé), poner (yo pongo), conocer (yo conozco), parecer (yo parezco).
- Yo-form irregular plus e > ie stem change: tener (yo tengo), suponer (yo supongo), mantener (yo mantengo).
- Auxiliary, wholly irregular: haber (he, has, ha, hemos, habéis, han).
- Everything else in the list (comer, deber, creer, temer, prometer, suceder) is fully regular.
How to internalise -er conjugation
Drill the rhythm out loud until it's muscle memory: o, es, e, emos, éis, en. Six syllables, same shape on every regular -er verb you'll ever meet.
You're going to learn tener, poder, saber, and ver in your first fortnight whether you mean to or not. They appear in almost every Spanish sentence, so the irregularities get hammered in by sheer exposure long before you sit down to study them. Don't worry about memorising them in isolation - hear them, repeat them, use them.
The yo-irregular pattern is so productive across this class that once you've internalised the -go ending (tengo, pongo, supongo, mantengo) and the -zco ending (conozco, parezco), you'll predict it correctly on every new -er verb you meet. That's the real payoff of front-loading the -er class: a small handful of patterns unlocks dozens of verbs.