Introduction to Spanish Verbs - The Infinitive

You all learned about verbs in school.  They are words that express actions or states of existence.  A verb in its most basic form is called an infinitive.  In English, the infinitive typically starts with the word "to" (to jump, to sing, to eat, to cough, and so on).  In Spanish, we have three types of infinitives - AR, ER, and IR.  An infinitive is classified according to its last two letters:

AR - manejar, hablar, cantar
ER - comer, hacer, ver
IR - abrir, recibir, prohibir

Each infinitive is divided into two parts - a stem and an ending:

                                   habl     ar
                                         stem        ending

Uses of the Infinitive

The infinitive often serves as the starting point for verb conjugation in Spanish.  Conjugation is the act of inflecting (changing the form of) a verb so that it may agree with a subject.  There are numerous verb inflections in Spanish, depending on the tense and mood one employs, and many of them start with the infinitive.  An infinitive by itself is not usually associated with a specific subject, but it will frequently pair up with an auxiliarly verb (helping verb) that is conjugated:

Puedo nadar.                  I can swim.

Quiero comer.                I want to eat.

Debo estudiar más.         I should study more.

How one conjugates a verb is a subject for subsequent postings.  Suffice it to say that in many cases you start by by dropping the ending of the infinitive you want to use, and then you add different endings to the stem in order to inflect your verb into a variety of tenses and moods.  Infinitives get used a lot in everyday language, both for conjugation and with auxiliarly verbs, but their usefulness doesn't end there.

Spanish commands can be pretty complex.  We often see the infinitive used in place of standard commands when the message is aimed at the general public, rather than at a specific person or group of people:

No tirar basura.                            Do not throw garbage.

No estacionar.                               No parking.

Llamar después de las 3:00.         Call after three.

In English, when you want to nominalize (change into a noun) a verb, you use a gerund.  Gerunds are words ending in "ing" that we use as nouns.  If you want to nominalize a verb in Spanish, just use the infinitive:

Ver es creer.                                  Seeing is believing.

Vivir aquí es costoso.                    Living here is costly.

It is quite common to see infinitives after a preposition:

Ella quiere salir esta noche sin cenar.

She wants to go out tonight without eating supper.

Infinitives are used after the contraction al to mean upon...

Al llegar a casa, Pedro se acostó inmediatamente.

Upon arriving home, Pedro went straight to bed.

Infinitives will sometimes be associated with a subject when one wants to express surprise or indignation:

¡Esquiar en esa montaña yo! ¡Ni en sueño!

Me ski on that mountain!  Not a chance!

I hope that gives you a general idea of the usefulness of infinitives in Spanish.  You should learn as many infinitives as you can, and absorb them with the same voracity that would with any vocabulary term.   I think the next logical step is to discuss the present tense in the next posting.  We'll start with the easy stuff, regular AR, ER, and IR verbs in the present indicative, then go on from there.  ¡Hasta la próxima!