The Present Tense — Regular Verb Endings
📚 The Present Tense — Regular Verb Endings
| Persona | hablar (to speak) | comer (to eat) | vivir (to live) |
|---|---|---|---|
| yo | hablo | como | vivo |
| tú | hablas | comes | vives |
| él/ella/usted | habla | come | vive |
| nosotros/as | hablamos | comemos | vivimos |
| vosotros/as | habláis | coméis | vivís |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | hablan | comen | viven |
Regular verbs follow the pattern — learn the endings, not 37 separate forms. Note the accent marks on habláis, coméis, and vivís: these are required for full marks.
To talk about plans or intentions in the near future, Spanish uses ir (conjugated) + a + infinitive. This is called the futuro perifrástico (periphrastic future). It is the equivalent of English "going to" and is extremely common in both speaking and writing exams.
Earn the mark scheme marks
⚠️ Common Mistakes
These errors appear regularly in GCSE Spanish exams and cost students marks in both accuracy and communication categories.
❌ Error 1: Estoy yendo a casa.
✅ Correcto: Voy a casa. o Estoy de camino a casa.
Why it costs marks: In English we say "I am going to the house" using the continuous form, but in Spanish, motion verbs like ir are rarely used in the continuous (estar + yendo). It sounds unnatural to a native speaker and signals that you have translated word-for-word from English. Use the simple present voy instead — it covers the same meaning and sounds correct.
❌ Error 2: Estando comiendo en el restaurante.
✅ Correcto: Estoy comiendo en el restaurante.
Why it costs marks: Estar must be conjugated to form the present continuous — it cannot itself become a gerundio. The structure is always estar (conjugated) + gerundio. Using estando here produces a non-sentence (it becomes a dangling participle) and loses marks under both grammar accuracy and message clarity.
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