Nan in Mass Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 I've been memorizing conocer-conozco dormir-duermo salir-salgo hacer-hago traer-traigo but I thought while I was memorizing, I might as well memorize all the principle parts, if there is such a thing. Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teachin'Mine Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 (edited) The verbs you're working with now are irregular. Have you already studied the conjugation of regular verbs? Not sure what principal parts are. ETA: If you mean I, you, he/she/it, we, they - then this may help: http://www.spanishdict.com/conjugate/conocer Present conozco ..conocemos conoces ..conocéis conoce .. conocen The present is the only one I'd work with at the beginning. The right hand column, the middle one is the informal you plural - it's generally not used except in certain countries. In the above example, you would read down the left column, and then down the right column - probably skipping the middle one. The translation is I know, you (informal) know, you/he/she/it (formal) know, we know and they or you plural know. But if you haven't done regular verbs, I'd definitely start with those first, except for the very commonly used ones which are irregular. Edited January 31, 2012 by Teachin'Mine formatting : p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newbie Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Dont want to simplify and havent taken Spanish in years, but memorizing the conjugations for the endings is the easiest. There are ar, er and ir verbs. These endings you take off and conjugate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 (edited) If by principle parts, you mean infinitive, present participle, and past participle, yes, Spanish has those. Like in English: go, going, gone? The regular past participle in Spanish adds -ado or -ido to the stem of the verb. Like in English, the past participle can also be used as an adjective, in which case the -o ending can be changed to - a, -os, -as depending on the gender and number of the noun. The ending always stays -o, however, when it is used in the perfect tenses as part of a verb phrase with 'haber'. The regular present participle adds -iendo or -ando to the stem (corresponding to the -ing suffix in English), and is used, as in English in the progressive tenses (am running, are going). It is also sometimes called the gerund (gerundo), but this form is not ever used as a noun as in English. The only verb form that can be used as a noun in Spanish is the infinitive. The infinitives in Spanish all end with one of three suffixes: -er, -ir, -ar. The forms you are memorizing are the irregular first person singular present tense conjugations (well, you probably already know that. :)). I know in English and German I've seen the principle parts memorized (and often including the simple past tense: go, going, gone, went; although I'm not sure that's the right order.) I've never seen them learnt this way in Spanish, however. Maybe because it's more worthwhile learning to chant the conjugations themselves, maybe because there aren't that many irregular participles in Spanish? The irregular past participles can be memorized with the mnemonic REVV MAC PHDD. Virtually all the present participles are regular. Edited January 31, 2012 by matroyshka Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 When we were working on Latin, when we learned a verb, we memorized not just the verb in its infinitive, but its "principle parts". For Latin, the principle parts, if memorized, allowed you to know the different stems so that you could add the regular endings to get the verb into the mood and tense that you wanted. If I memorize dormir-duermo instead of just dormir, then I know that dormir falls in the i -> ue stem-changing class of verbs. I thought that perhaps it would be useful also to memorize any other sorts of irregular bits (like any irregular past participles) at the same time, but perhaps Spanish isn't learned that way with good reason? Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 When we were working on Latin, when we learned a verb, we memorized not just the verb in its infinitive, but its "principle parts". For Latin, the principle parts, if memorized, allowed you to know the different stems so that you could add the regular endings to get the verb into the mood and tense that you wanted. If I memorize dormir-duermo instead of just dormir, then I know that dormir falls in the i -> ue stem-changing class of verbs. I thought that perhaps it would be useful also to memorize any other sorts of irregular bits (like any irregular past participles) at the same time, but perhaps Spanish isn't learned that way with good reason?Nan Ah. The important parts for that to learn are indeed the first person irregulars of the present tense, for the present subjunctive is based on those, and the first or third person for the many irregulars in the preterit tense, as the past subjunctive is based on that. Is that what you meant? I still haven't seen those memorized as a group in any Spanish curriculum I've seen, though. For example: Poner -> pongo (1st person present) -> pusieron (3rd person preterit) Present subjunctive is ponga/pongas... etc. and Past subjuntive is pusiera/pusieras... etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 Exactly. Thank you very much. We haven't gotten there yet in my Spanish class but as I said, with the way I happen to be memorizing, it would make sense to do it all at once, I think. I will add the 3rd person preterit. Nice that I only need three. Thanks again, Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teachin'Mine Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Nan, if you go to my link above, you'll see that the present subjunctive and the imperative are irregular for conocer. The ones listed in red are irregular. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teachin'Mine Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 After seeing how much of poner is irregular in its different conjugations, you may want to rethink your approach. Personally, I would feel overwhelmed. :tongue_smilie: http://www.spanishdict.com/conjugate/poner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 After seeing how much of poner is irregular in its different conjugations' date=' you may want to rethink your approach. Personally, I would feel overwhelmed. :tongue_smilie: http://www.spanishdict.com/conjugate/poner[/quote'] That's her point. Virtually of the irregulars in poner are based on those two other forms (1st person present and 3rd person preterit), so if she's got those memorized, she's halfway there. Haven't seen it done that way, but I can see her logic (especially if she's used to doing it that way in Latin). Yes, the conditional and future of poner are differently irregular, but they also both use the same stem, and there are very few irregulars in the future. There's a certain group of verbs that all act like poner in the future/conditional, you just memorize them together (including tener, salir, a couple others). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 Hmm... Well I would expect to have to learn some verbs in their entirety (no idea how to spell that - sorry). Poner is one of the very common ones that would have to be memorized differently. Often, though, what is irregular is the stem, and if I memorize conocer-conozco, I have the irregular stem of conocer's subjunctive and imperiative. I think? In order to be able to use verbs at speed, in conversation, you have to know them all separately, but initially, when one is first trying to learn, I think something like this will help. It certainly will help me write Spanish, when I have plenty of time to say my little chant and think of the verb endings and go through the procedure to put together the verb correctly. For example, if I memorize poner-pongo, the imperative's stem comes from pongo. If I have this right... Maybe I don't... I find learning any language overwhelming. Sigh. Thank you for the site! That will be helpful. I have a paper dictionary and my textbook (which is pretty limited), but having something on the computer is very nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teachin'Mine Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 That's her point. Virtually of the irregulars in poner are based on those two other forms (1st person present and 3rd person preterit), so if she's got those memorized, she's halfway there. Haven't seen it done that way, but I can see her logic (especially if she's used to doing it that way in Latin). Yes, the conditional and future of poner are differently irregular, but they also both use the same stem, and there are very few irregulars in the future. There's a certain group of verbs that all act like poner in the future/conditional, you just memorize them together (including tener, salir, a couple others). Sorry Nan, I misunderstood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 For example, if I memorize poner-pongo, the imperative's stem comes from pongo. If I have this right... Maybe I don't... The imperative doesn't have to be memorzied separately at all (except for the postive 2nd person familiar (tú/vosotros), both singular and plural). But all the other imperative forms: 3rd person sing/plural, 2nd person formal sing/plural (ponga, no ponga), 1st person plural (pongamos/no pongamos) (all both negative and postive) and negative 2nd person familiar sing/plural (no pongas/no pongáis), are all just the subjunctive tense in its regular form. The full subjunctive of poner: ponga................pongamos pongas...............pongáis ponga................pongan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colleen in NS Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 We haven't gotten there yet in my Spanish class but as I said, with the way I happen to be memorizing, it would make sense to do it all at once, I think. I would expect to have to learn some verbs in their entirety (no idea how to spell that - sorry). ...but initially, when one is first trying to learn, I think something like this will help. ...If I have this right... Maybe I don't... I find learning any language overwhelming. Sigh. I don't know Spanish grammar, but I think you are on the right track with memorizing all the principle parts at once. I think you're going to make Spanish-learning easier for yourself by doing this. See somewhat similar thread I posted in December: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=333507&highlight=latin See my first question in my OP, then see EM's reply in post #3, and then Faithr's reply in post #7, her last sentence. It all made sense to me after reading those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colleen in SEVA Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 (edited) There are 3 principal parts in English (the first 2 PP of Latin - infinitive and first person present - are usually the same in English), but not Spanish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_parts In Spanish, verbs are traditionally held to have only one principal part, the infinitive, by which one can classify the verb into one of three conjugation paradigms (according to the ending of the infinitive, which may be -ar, -er or -ir). However, some scholars believe that the conjugation could be regularized by adding another principal part to vowel-alternating verbs, which shows the alternation. For example, herir "to hurt" is usually considered irregular because its conjugation contains forms like hiero "I hurt", hieres "you hurt", where the vowel in the root changes into a diphthong. However, by including the first person singular, present tense, indicative mood form (hiero) as a principal part, and noting that the diphthong appears only when that syllable is stressed, the conjugation of herir becomes completely predictable. Interesting side note: They are prinicpal parts, not principle parts, which I only discovered just now when my search for principle parts was redirected. I pulled out DS's Latin book to confirm, and they are called principAL parts in the book that we have been using for 2 years and I never noticed. Strange, anyone know why? PrincipLE makes more sense to me. Edited February 2, 2012 by Colleen in SEVA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 That's interesting. When I wrote the word, I had to make a choice and chose principle, since that was the logical choice. Or so I thought. I can make guesses having to do with head rather than most important, but just guesses... The wiki info is interesting, too. Thanks. And NS Colleen - thank you. I will investigate. Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colleen in NS Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Interesting side note: They are prinicpal parts, not principle parts, which I only discovered just now when my search for principle parts was redirected. I pulled out DS's Latin book to confirm, and they are called principAL parts in the book that we have been using for 2 years and I never noticed. Strange, anyone know why? PrincipLE makes more sense to me. I never noticed that, either! I looked in the R&S 8 grammar book, and it's principAL there, too! I think Nan might be right about "head" - in Latin the principal parts are sort of the "head" of making forms of verbs, aren't they? Same in English? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StillStanding Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 This is my favorite conjugation book:D Complete Handbook of Spanish Verbs Publication Date: January 11, 1984 | ISBN-10: 0844276340 | ISBN-13: 978-0844276342 | Edition: 1 This is the most thorough handbook available for Spanish verb usage. Highly accessible, the Complete Handbook of Spanish Verbs provides a quick and easy way to find the conjugations of more than 4,500 verbs in Spanish--and fully conjugated in all tenses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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