The Everything Spanish Grammar Book: All The Rules You Need To Master Espanol (Everything®) (14 page)

Spanish has a very similar pattern. “C” follows the same rule before “e” and “i,” and so does “g,” except that before “e” and “i” it’s pronounced as a hard “h.” And “z” behaves strangely as well. It does not like to come before “e” or “i” at all. (If this is not obvious to you, it might be a good time to refer to the pronunciation guide in Chapter 3.)

This presents a problem when a verb’s stem ends with a letter like “c,” “g,” or “z,” and an ending that should be added changes the stem’s pronunciation. Let’s take
coger
(to grab) as an example. The “g” in
coger
is pronounced like a hard “h,” and for the verb to be understood, all its conjugations should begin with “cog–” where the “g” retains its pronunciation. However, to form the present indicative
yo
form, “I grab,” you need to add the –o ending. In speech, that’s easy: the form sounds like “KOH-hoh.” When you write it down, however, you encounter an obvious problem:
cogo
spells out “KOH-goh,” an entirely different word. Thus, to make the spelling fit with the pronunciation, the verb form undergoes a spelling change:
cojo.
Since “j” retains its pronunciation regardless of what letter follows it, we have to substitute it for the more fickle “g.”

ESSENTIAL

Making Pronunciation Easier

Another explanation for why some verbs have irregular forms has to do with speech patterns. If a certain verb form is difficult to pronounce, over time it will evolve into an irregular pronunciation. In English, “ain’t” might eventually overcome its slang status and become a “real” word. And other words that were formerly incorrect have already found their place in the English dictionary. The same is true in Spanish and most often occurs in the pronunciation of vowels.

One common change is the result of a syllable containing “e” or “o” taking on the accent. To understand what this means, take
pensar
(to think) as an example. In the infinitive form, pronounced pehn-SAHR, the first “e” is not accented. But when adding the endings, the accent does fall on it in four out of six conjugations. If
pensar
were regular, its present indicative conjugations would be as follows:

However, because of a tendency in Spanish to modify an accented “e” to “ie” or “i,” the correct forms are:

Unless you are a native speaker and these forms come naturally to you, you won’t necessarily know which verbs follow this pronunciation change. However, once you learn that a particular verb belongs to a group of “e > ie” verbs, you’ll know it’ll behave just as
pensar
in present indicative tense.

ALERT

Pronunciation change also works with consonants. For example, a group of verbs with a stem ending in “n” like
tener
(to have) and
venir
(to come) gain a “g” at the end of the stem in the
yo
form of the present indicative. This means that instead of
yo teno
and
yo veno,
the correct forms are
yo
tengo
and
yo vengo.

Spelling Change Verbs

A change in spelling to reflect correct pronunciation is one of the most common irregularities found in Spanish verbs, and the one that generally makes sense. Spelling changes happen to “tricky” letters like
c
and
g,
which have more than one pronunciation depending on the letter that follows, and vowel combinations like
ui.

From “I” to “Y”

In verbs that end in –uir, the long “i” sound is retained in all six conjugations, which requires changing the spelling of some of the forms from “i” to “y.” Take a look at the conjugations of
influir
(to influence) and
huir
(to flee):

Other verbs that follow the same pattern are
atribuir
(to attribute),
concluir
(to conclude),
destruir
(to destroy),
incluir
(to include), and
sustituir
(to substitute).

ESSENTIAL

The Inconstant “C”

Many verbs undergo a spelling change because their stem ends with a “c,” which needs to maintain its pronunciation, either as “s” or “k”. For example, verbs that end in –ecer maintain the “s” sound at the end of the stem. This works just fine with most forms of the present indicative, but poses a problem in the
yo
form.

Take
aparecer
(to appear) as an example. If you simply add the –o ending, the result will be
apareco,
with the “c” pronounced as “k.” And
apareso
doesn’t work either (in Spain, the “c” in
aparecer
is pronounced “th,” so “s” wouldn’t serve as a substitution). Instead, both spelling and pronunciation change a bit, from “c” to “zc”:
aparezco.
Take a look at the conjugations of
aparecer
and
establecer
(to establish):

Other –ecer verbs that undergo a “c > zc” change in the
yo
form are
agradecer
(to thank),
conocer
(to know),
crecer
(to grow),
merecer
(to deserve),
obedecer
(to obey),
ofrecer
(to offer),
parecer
(to seem),
permanecer
(to remain), and
pertenecer
(to belong).

Verbs that end in –ecer are not the only ones subject to the “c > zc” change; the same is true of verbs that end in –ucir, like
conducir
(to drive) and
traducir
(to translate). Note that these are –ir verbs, which means they have different endings:

Other –ucir verbs that work in the exactly the same way are
lucir
(to shine) and
producir
(to produce).

When the Verb Stem Ends in “G”

Verbs that need to retain the hard “h” sound of the “g” at the end of the stem undergo a “g > j” change in the
yo
form of the present indicative, to retain the correct pronunciation with the ending –o. This is true of all verbs ending in –ger or –gir, like
proteger
(to protect) and
dirigir
(to direct). Again, notice that the endings still reflect the differences between –er and –ir verbs.

Other –ger and –gir verbs that undergo the same change in the
yo
form are
afligir
(to afflict),
coger
(to grab),
encoger
(to shrink),
exigir
(to demand),
fingir
(to pretend), and
recoger
(to gather).

FACT