Topic:
Learn and practice some verbs that have irregularities in the formation of the present participle.
Some forms are irregular
Even with the easy progressive tenses, Spanish makes us work a little bit to master them.
Some verbs have present participles that are irregular. Fortunately, one group of the irregular forms is easy to spot.
The -yendo present participles
When the verb stem ends in a vowel, the present participle ending becomes -yendo instead.
This makes sense because a regularly-formed participle would look awkward in these cases. Consider the verb leer which means to read. The root is "le", which ends in a vowel.
If the participle were formed regularly, it would be leiendo which looks like a tongue twister.
Instead, it becomes leyendo
, which looks more manageable.
Progressive Present conjugation of leer, to read
Here is another example:
Progressive Present conjugation of construir, to construct
There are other types of irregularities
In a future unit when we learn about stem-changing verbs, we will find that those verbs are irregular in the progressive tenses in a different way.
But for now we are only interested in the -yendo forms of the progressive tenses.
To help you learn and remember these exceptions, there won't be any regular verbs in the exercises or quiz for this lesson.
Additional Study Resources
Videos:
Websites:
Books:
On to the Exercises and the Quiz
To practice the verb forms in this lesson, click Practice Exercises below.
Whenever you want, you can take the quiz for this lesson.
Practice Exercises
Take the Quiz
Previous Lesson
