Lesson 25: Essential Conversational Verbs in Spanish

In this video, we're going to expand our Spanish vocabulary with some very common verbs. These are ones you'll find yourself using all the time in everyday conversation, and I'm going to show you 8 different ones that we can start integrating with our Spanish right away. The first one I'd like to show you is the verb IR, which means to go. It's just a two-letter word, spelled I R. IR. This is one of the most common verbs, and we can easily use this with our modal verb structure. For example, how would you say I want to go? Quiero ir. I can't go tomorrow. No puedo ir mañana. She needs to go with you. Necesita ir contigo. Do you want to go on Friday? Quieres ir el viernes? He wants to see if we can go first. Quiere ver si podemos ir primero. Next we have the verb COMER, which is the verb to eat. How would you say I want to eat it? Quiero comerlo. I don't want to eat it like that. No quiero comerlo así. They want to eat something different today. Quieren comer algo diferente hoy. Do you want to eat at home or at a restaurant? Quieres comer en casa o en un restaurante? We can eat with my family. Podemos comer con mi familia. If we have the verb to eat, then we also need the verb to drink. In Spanish, the verb is BEBER. How would you say I want to drink something? You have to drink more water. The word for water is AGUA. I don't want to drink coffee right now. To express right now, one way would be to say in this moment, en este momento. No quiero beber café en este momento. To say what, the word is QUE. It's spelt the same as the word for that, but here we have an accent in the spelling. How would you ask, what do you want to drink? We need to drink water. It's important. Necesitamos beber agua. Es importante. The verb to live is BEBIR. We want to live here. She wants to live here with me. Are you able to live with your parents? Two things here. Remember that TO BE ABLE TO is expressed in the same way as CAN, so this is going to lead you into the modal verb that we have for that. Then down here we have the word PARENTS, which is PADRES. Try to say it. ¿Puedes vivir con tus padres? We don't have to live in a big house. No tenemos que vivir en una casa grande. I want to live in Spain. Quiero vivir en España. Here we have the verb TOMAR, which means to take, but you might also hear this in place of to drink, so instead of BEBER, you might hear TOMAR being used, so just be aware that this verb can also be used for to drink. In any language, very often you have multiple options for saying things, so this is just one example of that. How would you say I can't take it? No puedo tomarlo. She doesn't want to take the money. The word for the money is EL DINERO. No quiere tomar el dinero. You need to take the key. Necesitas tomar la llave. I want to drink a coffee. Quiero tomar un café. The word for decision is DECISIÓN, and this is a feminine word. To say something like they have to make a decision, here Spanish will use the verb TOMAR, so literally they have to take a decision. How would you translate it? Next up, we have the verb ESPERAR. This means to wait or to wait for. How would you say I have to wait here? Tengo que esperar aquí. Now let's change the sentence to I have to wait for him. Here, with the word for, you're not going to use PARA. All of this, to wait for, is contained within the verb ESPERAR. Therefore, it's going to translate as Tengo que esperarlo. I have to wait for him. So, whenever you're using the verb ESPERAR with a pronoun, it's going to stand for to wait for. Can you wait for me here? ¿Puedes esperarme aquí? Can you wait a moment? ¿Puedes esperar un momento? I'm sorry, but I can't wait anymore. Lo siento, pero no puedo esperar más. The verb to help is AYUDAR. How would you say I want to help? Quiero ayudar. I want to help her. Quiero ayudarla. If instead of a pronoun, like him or her, you were to use the person's name, for example, I want to help Pablo, something very interesting is going to happen here. Something known as the personal A is going to come into play. How it works is that whenever you have a verb plus a person, so this could be the person's name or however you refer to them as, so this could be like my brother or my mom and so on, so when this happens, Spanish will inject this personal A in between the two. So, going back to our sentence, I want to help Pablo, it would become Quiero ayudar a Pablo. So, this A doesn't translate as anything, it almost seems pointless, because we have I want to help Pablo. But this is simply a grammatical rule in Spanish. When you have a verb like AYUDAR followed by a person, Spanish will throw in the personal A. So, I want to help Pablo. Quiero ayudar a Pablo. How would you say she needs to help her sister? Necesita ayudar a su hermana. Again, you can see the personal A appeared here, because we have AYUDAR followed by su hermana. I have to help my dad today. Tengo que ayudar a mi padre hoy. They can't help us tomorrow. No pueden ayudarnos mañana. Finally, we have the verb SALIR, which means to go out. How would you say he wants to go out later? Quiere salir mas tarde. To say tonight in Spanish, the phrase is Esta noche. Literally, this night. Esta noche. Now say, I don't want to go out tonight. No quiero salir esta noche. The word for friend is AMIGO. That's for a male friend. If it's a female friend, then it would be AMIGA. Now try to say, I want to go out with my friends tonight. Be careful with this one, as we are now using the word as a plural. Quiero salir con mis amigos esta noche. How would you ask, do you want to go out to the beach today? Where we have TO the beach. This TO is going to be A in Spanish. ¿Quieres salir a la playa hoy? I don't have to go out later. I can be here with you. No tengo que salir mas tarde. Puedo estar aquí contigo.