Conjugating the Spanish Verb Nadar (to Swim)

Spanish verbs fall into different groups, and each group is conjugated a little differently. If you’re going to master Spanish verbs like nadar, you need to be able to identify which group a verb belongs to: regular (follows regular conjugation rules for -ar, -er, and -ir verbs), stem-changing (morphs depending on how you use it in a sentence), spelling-changing (has consonant-spelling changes in some forms to follow pronunciation rules), or reflexive (reflects the action back on the subject of the sentence).

Nadar (nah-dahr) (to swim) is a regular -ar verb, so its conjugation is pretty straightforward. Here it is in the present tense:

The following examples show you nadar in action:

• ¿Nadas todos los días? (Do you swim every day?)

• No. Nado los martes y sábados. (No. I swim on Tuesdays and Saturdays.)

Need to know how to conjugate nadar in another tense? The following tables show you the preterit, imperfect, and future forms.

You use the preterit tense like this:

• Ellos nadaron muy rápido. (They swam very fast.)

• Nosotros nadamos más rápido. (We swam faster.)

Here are some examples of the imperfect tense:

• ¿Nadabas tú con tu hermano? (Did you use to swim with your brother?)

• Sí. Nadaba con mi hermano y mi papá. (Yes. I used to swim with my brother and my dad.)

The following samples put the future tense to work:

• ¿Nadarás toda tu vida? (Will you swim all your life?)

• Sí. Nadaré siempre porque me gusta mucho. (Yes. I will always swim because I like it a lot.)