This is lesson 15 in Crashed Culture’s Spanish grammar series.

List of Stem Changing Verbs in Spanish

After getting comfortable with how to conjugate Spanish verbs, you’ve probably seen verb conjugations that are just…weird. Never fear, a list of stem-changing verbs in Spanish is here!

Basically, there are some words whose upper half change when the infinitive is conjugated, so it turns into a whole other word you can’t even recognize. Fortunately, there’s a pattern for that!

O to UE stem-changing verbs

The first pattern we’re going to look at is the O to UE stem-changing verbs. As you’re about to see, it’s a simple flip around; once you get a hang of this, it’ll be weirder to see these words without their appropriate stem-changing.

Let’s start with a couple of super common words.

Take a good, close look at what’s going on in those tables. The conjugations themselves are just your normal, run-of-the-mill, regular conjugations, but the stems change too.

BUT, not all of the stems change, either! Nosotros/as and vosotros/as never change their stems. Never ever ever.

Let’s look at some example sentences:

• Cuento el dinero de mi madre. (I count my mother’s money)
• Mueves el coche más cerca de la casa. (You move the car closer to the house)
• Muere de la sed. (He/she/it dies of thirst)
• Almorzamos con nuestros compañeros de trabajo. (We eat lunch with our coworkers)
• Probáis el sándwich de la chica. (You all taste the girl’s sandwich)
• Recuerden la película más famosa del mundo. (They remember the world’s most famous movie)

E to IE stem-changing verbs

Once you get those down, the rest of these are easy to figure out. It’s all the same idea, with slightly different letter combinations.

So, for the sake of practice, let’s now address E to IE stem-changing verbs.

See? It’s the exact same deal, just with different letters. Here’s some examples of the E to IE stem-changing verbs:

• Cierro la puerta del edificio. (I close the building’s door)
• Mientes cuando puedes decir la verdad. (You lie when you can tell the truth)
• Comienza la fiesta un poco tarde. (He/she starts the party a little late)
• Pensamos mucho en el problema. (We think about the problem a lot)
• ¿Preferís el blanco or negro? (Do you all prefer the white or black one?)
• Niegan la pregunta cada vez. (They deny the question every time)

E to I stem-changing verbs

Last, but definitely not least, we have our E to I stem-changing verbs. Same pattern, same idea, just some new words and letters!

And your examples, as promised:

• Sigo el perro a tráves de la calle. (I follow the dog across the street)
• Sirves las bebidas durante la cena. (You serve the drinks during dinner)
• Mide el tamaño de la camisa. (He/she measures the size of the shirt)
• Corregimos a los estudiantes cuando están malos. (We correct the students when they’re wrong)
• Elegís un buen politico. (You all elect a good politician)
• Gimen cuando comienza la escuela. (They groan when school starts)

To review…

I hope some of these conjugations make more sense now. Although there are many beginner words that change their stems when they’re conjugated, this concept isn’t usually a beginner concept. Weird, huh?

Of course, these aren’t all the words that you’ll need to memorize as stem-changing - they’re not even all the common ones! You can find those in the flashcards that come with this lesson.

Ready to move on?

Check out the next lesson: 2-verb expressions