This lesson will help you understand the irregular verbs in Spanish, and enables you to use real examples shown below. If you have any question let us know by clicking on the “Contact us” button, this lesson is very important since it covers a very widely used element in Spanish which is the irregular verb.

In Spanish there are regular, semiregular and irregular verbs. We already know regular verbs. Semiregular verbs are verbs having slight modifications in their spelling, just so that they can sound phonetically easy to pronounce, like the verb pagar (to pay) yo pago (I pay), in the past instead of writing yo pagé, we added a (u) after the g so that it would still sound [g] like in pago I bought= yo pagué, and not like [j] if we wrote pagé. Irregular verbs are verbs which don't follow standard rules of conjugation in the different verb tenses. The bad news is that they're the most used verbs. So you need to focus on them more, the good news is that you can become familiar with them easily. We will deal with semiregular and irregular as a one subject, because semiregular verbs are considered somehow irregular too.

Here we will go through types of irregularity:

-First person singular present with g: decir (to say), I say= digo. caer (to fall), I fall= caigo. hacer (to do), I do= hago. salir (to go out), I go out= saglo...

-First person present g changes to j:  escoger (to choose), I choose= escojo. corrigir (to correct), I correct= corrijo.

-Stem changes in the third person singular present (e -> ie):  negar (to deny), he denies= niega. cerrar (to close), he closes= cierra. pensar (to think), he think=piensa

-Stem changes in the third person singular present (o -> ue): jugar (to play), he plays= juega. mostrar (to show), he shows= muestra. dormir (to sleep),he sleeps=duerme

-Stem changes in the third person singular present (e -> i): decir (to say), he says= dice. medir (to measure), he measures= mide.

-When we add an e to the last letter of the stem c then (c -> qu): platicar (to chat), I chatted= platiqué. bloacar (to block), I blocked= bloqué.

-When we add an e to the last letter of the stem z then (z-> c): lanzar (to throw) I threw= lancé.

-When we add an a or o to the last letter of the stem c then (c ->zc): conocer (to know) I know = conozco.

These are some common irregular verbs in Spanish (check the table below to see how they are conjugated): abrir, andar, caer, cerrar, conocer, creer, dar, decir, dormir, empezar, encontrar, escribir, escoger, estoy, hacer, ir, jugar, leer, llegar, mirar, oír, olvidar, pagar, pedir, pensar, perder, poder, poner, quedar, querer, saber, sacar, salir, seguir, sentir, ser, tener, traer, valer, venir, ver, volver.

Smart List of Irregular Verbs in Spanish

This list contains most of the common modifications that occur to verbs, it may seem confusing, but this is the easiest way to learn how a verb is modified, especially once you get used to the table.

-Underlined words: refer to the stem of a verb; the root of the verb that you should keep, and modify only what comes after that stem.

-Words in bold: means that the word is conjugated in an irregular way and maybe that was the reason why it was put in this irregular list.

-Abbreviations: (pa part= past participle)

I hope you benefited from this lesson (the Spanish irregular verbs), please check our other lessons to take advantage of the other useful information they may contain.