TOPIC: Spanish GCSE Grammar – Regular Present Tense Verbs (hablo, comes, vive)
Welcome to episode 4 of our story “Constance e Imran”. In every blog you will always find the same format:
- The story episode in Spanish.
- The translation into English.
- A grammar explanation with examples from the story.
This way you can practise reading, understanding and grammar, all at the same time.
EPISODIO 4 – La cita en la pizarra (The Quote on the Board)
Mr Whitmore escribe en la pizarra:
«La felicidad se puede encontrar incluso en los momentos más oscuros, si uno solo recuerda encender la luz.»
Mr Whitmore writes on the board:
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
Constance sonríe.
«Eso lo dice Dumbledore en Harry Potter.»
Constance smiles.
“That’s what Dumbledore says in Harry Potter.”
Jason se ríe fuerte.
«Biblioteca con piernas.»
Jason laughs loudly.
“Library with legs.”
Constance lo mira seria.
«Mejor una biblioteca con piernas que un estante vacío con piernas.»
Constance looks at him seriously.
“Better a library with legs than an empty shelf with legs.”
La clase hace ruido. Mr Whitmore levanta la mano.
«Los libros no muerden. Pero los prejuicios sí.»
The class makes noise. Mr Whitmore raises his hand.
“Books don’t bite. But prejudice does.”
Silencio. Jason murmura.
«Esto no termina aquí.»
Silence. Jason mutters:
“This isn’t over.”
GRAMMAR
We will introduce the Regular Present Tense. Regular Verbs follow always the same pattern, so once that you know one, you know the rest. It’s like joining pieces in a puzzle. We have three groups of verbs in Spanish:
Constance lo mira seria. MIRAR (ending with AR)
La clase hace ruido. HACER (ending with ER)
Mr Whitmore escribe en la pizarra. ESCRIBIR (ending with IR)
Today, I will teach you verbs ending in AR. You need to drop the ending AR and replace it in this way:
MIRAR: to watch
MIR-
For only one person, you have:
yo mirO, I watch
tú mirAS, you watch
él mirA, he watches
ella mirA, she watches
For more than one person, you have:
nosotros, nosotras mirAMOS, we watch
vosotros, vosotras mirÁIS, you all or you both watch
ellos, ellas mirAN, they watch
And that’s it! If you have another regular verb ending in AR, you do exactly the same thing.
ESTUDIAR: to study
ESTUDI-
yo estudiO
tú estudiAS
él estudiA
ella estudiA
nosotros, nosotras estudiAMOS
vosotros, vosotras estudiÁIS
ellos, ellas estudiAN
Here you have a video made by me explaining more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5tkObfogB0&t=1s
TIP:
La clase termina. Pero la guerra entre Jason, Constance e Imran recién empieza.
A very easy but effective way to impress your teacher is to enlarge your sentences when writing or speaking. To do that, you need to connect ideas with words like pero (but).
Instead of saying Estudio matemáticas (I study math), say Estudio matemáticas pero no ciencias (I study math but not science).
An alternative to pero is sin embargo (however): Uso TikTok. Sin embargo, a veces me hace perder tiempo (I use TikTok. However, sometimes it wastes my time).
Find all the episodes here: https://spanishforlondon.com/2025/08/29/contents-gcse-spanish/
Highly qualified native teacher with 30 years of experience. One-to-one lessons via Zoom. Contact me at laura@spanishforlondon.com
We post two new episodes every week — keep up with Constance and Imran’s story!
