Conjugating the Spanish Verb Hablar (to Speak)

Spanish verbs fall into different groups, and each group is conjugated a little differently. If you’re going to master Spanish verbs like hablar, 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).

Hablar (ah-bvlahr) (to speak) is a regular -ar verb, so its conjugation is pretty straightforward. Here it is in the present tense:

The following examples show you hablar in action:

• Ella habla español. (She speaks Spanish.)

• Nosotros hablamos inglés muy bien. (We speak English very well.)

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

You use the preterit tense like this:

• ¿Hablaste con tu padre anteayer? (Did you talk with your father the day before yesterday?)

• Sí. Hablé con mi padre sobre muchas cosas. (Yes. I spoke with my father about many things.)

Here are some examples of the imperfect tense:

• Ellos siempre hablaban por teléfono los viernes por la noche. (They always talked on the phone on Friday evening.)

• La profesora siempre hablaba en español. (The teacher always used to speak in Spanish.)

The following samples put the future tense to work:

• Tomás hablará por teléfono con Susana mañana. (Tomás will talk on the phone with
  Susana tomorrow.)

• Hablaré por teléfono con mi mamá este fin de semana. (I will talk on the telephone with
  my mom this weekend.)