Verbos -ar Regulares - Regular -ar Verbs

You already know two verbs in detail — ser and estar — and a handful of fixed phrases. Now you unlock a whole pattern. Spanish verbs come in three families based on their ending: -ar, -er and -ir. The biggest family by far is -ar, and almost every verb in it is regular, which means it follows one tidy set of endings. Learn the pattern once and you can conjugate hundreds of verbs without looking anything up.

The deal is simple: chop off the -ar to get the verb stem, then bolt on the ending that matches the subject. That's it.

The -ar Endings

Take hablar ("to speak"). The stem is habl-. Add the endings:

Pronoun	Ending	Hablar	Pronounced
yo	-o	hablo	AH-blo
tú	-as	hablas	AH-blas
él / ella / usted	-a	habla	AH-bla
nosotros / nosotras	-amos	hablamos	ah-BLAH-mos
vosotros / vosotras	-áis	habláis	ah-BLAH-ees
ellos / ellas / ustedes	-an	hablan	AH-blan

A few things to lock in:

The yo ending is just -o. Hablo, trabajo, estudio — it never changes for regular -ar verbs.
Vosotros -áis carries an accent over the a, and the stress lands there. Habláis, trabajáis, estudiáis. This is the form you'll hear with friends every day in Spain.
The nosotros -amos form is identical in spelling and stress for every regular -ar verb. Once you say hablamos, you can say trabajamos, estudiamos, escuchamos with no extra effort.

The Same Pattern, Four Verbs

Now apply that same set of endings to four high-frequency verbs you'll use constantly. Notice that only the stem changes — the endings are identical.

Pronoun	trabajar (work)	estudiar (study)	escuchar (listen)	tomar (take/drink)
yo	trabajo	estudio	escucho	tomo
tú	trabajas	estudias	escuchas	tomas
él/ella	trabaja	estudia	escucha	toma
nosotros	trabajamos	estudiamos	escuchamos	tomamos
vosotros	trabajáis	estudiáis	escucháis	tomáis
ellos	trabajan	estudian	escuchan	toman

Try a few real sentences:

Hablo español y un poco de inglés. – I speak Spanish and a little English.
Mi hermana trabaja en una oficina en Madrid. – My sister works in an office in Madrid.
Estudiamos juntos los lunes. – We study together on Mondays.
¿Escucháis música clásica? – Do you all listen to classical music?
Mis padres viajan mucho. – My parents travel a lot.

Word Order and Negation

Spanish word order for these sentences is the same as English: subject + verb + the rest. But Spanish does two things English doesn't:

Drops the subject when it's obvious from the verb. Hablo español — no yo needed; the -o already says "I". Add the pronoun only for emphasis or contrast: yo hablo español, pero ella habla francés.
Negates with one word: no goes right before the verb. No trabajo los domingos. No escuchamos la radio en casa.

A small Castilian note on pronunciation: in Spain, the c before e or i and the z are pronounced like the English th in think. So escuchar is fine (the c here is before u, hard sound), but watch for words like Cecilia, cinco, cerveza — they all carry the theta sound.

Practice

Words to Remember

Spanish	English
hablar	to speak
trabajar	to work
estudiar	to study
escuchar	to listen
cantar	to sing
cocinar	to cook
viajar	to travel
tomar	to take / to drink
currar	to work (colloquial, Spain)
español	Spanish (language)
inglés	English (language)
la música	music
la oficina	the office
la clase	the class
la universidad	the university
juntos / juntas	together

Conversation

Catching up between classes

Lucía: ¿Estudias o trabajas? Are you studying or working?

Carlos: Estudio en la Complutense y curro los fines de semana. I study at the Complutense and I work weekends.

Lucía: ¡Qué fuerte, tío! Wow, mate!

At the café

Diego: ¿Qué tomas? What are you having?

María: Yo tomo un café con leche. ¿Y tú? I'll have a café con leche. And you?

Diego: Un té. ¿Escuchas la música? Me encanta. A tea. Do you hear the music? I love it.

Talking about languages

Pablo: ¿Habláis inglés en casa? Do you all speak English at home?

Ana: Mi marido habla inglés, pero yo no. My husband speaks English, but I don't.

Pablo: Vale, hablamos en español, entonces. OK, we'll speak in Spanish, then.

Cultural Note

In Spain, trabajar is the neutral, everywhere-appropriate verb for "to work" — the one you use on a CV, in a job interview, on the news. Currar is the colloquial cousin: friends, family, beers. Both are fine; they live in different rooms. ¿Dónde trabajas? at a job interview, ¿qué tal el curro? to your mate at the bar. The noun el curro ("the job, the gig") is just as common: tengo curro a las nueve, no llego.

You'll also notice Spaniards drop subject pronouns more aggressively than Latin American speakers. Trabajo en Madrid is the default; yo trabajo en Madrid sounds like you're contradicting someone. Don't add yo, tú, él, ella unless you want to emphasise or contrast — the verb ending already does the work.