What are your tips to conjugate Spanish verbs (present tense)?

Answer 1

When learning to conjugate verbs, it helped me most to put the endings into a conjugation chart, instead of trying to memorize them in a list. The chart works as follows (drawn as a T-chart, it's difficult to reproduce with characters):

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yo / nosotros/as

tú / vosotros/as

él,ella,usted / ellos/as, ustedes

Then place the appropriate verb endings in each space:

-ar verbs

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-o / -amos

-as / -áis

-a / -an

-er/ verbs

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-o / -emos

-es / -éis

-e / -en

-ir/ verbs

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-o / -imos

-es / -ís

-e / -en

To conjugate a verb in the present tense, you remove the -ar/-er/-ir and add the appropriate ending, depending on who the subject of your verb is. Note that there are some irregular "yo" forms, such as tener-->tengo, decir-->digo, and some verbs that have a stem change, such as tener-->tiene, jugar-->juego, pedir-->pide, but you should master basic conjugation before you begin dealing with stem-changers.

I hope this helps!

Answer 2

To conjugate verbs in the present tense (or in any tense), my number one suggestion would be to memorize the conjugation endings for -ar, -er, and -ir verbs. If you can memorize those, then it's just a matter of repeated practice of putting the correct ending on each verb. There are common irregular/stem changing verbs that are helpful to be familiar with, but for the most part, verbs will follow the same pattern.

When I was learning to conjugate verbs, I made it a game/competition where I would be given a specific verb and then I was timed to see how quickly I could fill in the "conjugation tree" with each of the correct conjugations of that verb. If I was competing against someone else to fill our conjugation tree first, then the person who could finish it the fastest without making any mistakes was the winner. That made it fun for me and was a great way to get repeated practice.