Do now activity: students each get two flashcards and on one side wrote "pretérito -ar" and on the other side write the verb conjugation endings (é, aste, ó, amos, aron). On another flashcard, they wrote the conjugations for -er/-ir verbs.
The next two classes will be reviewing basic grammar that all students should know. Since students all have different backgrounds and a few students recently moved up to the intermediate class, we need to make sure everyone knows grammar basics.
masculine and feminine articles
As a general rule, nouns ending in -a get a feminine article (la/las) and verbs ending in -o are considered masculine (el/los). Other rules: words ending in -ma (problema, programa, sistema, tema) are masculine. Words ending in -dad/-tad and -ción are feminine. There are always exceptions, like el mapa and la mano.
Present tense verb conjugation
-ar verbs (o, as, a, amos, an)
-er verbs (o, es, e, emos, en)
-ir verbs (o, es, e, imos, en)
Notice that there is only one difference (nosotros conjugation) for er/ir verbs.
Irregular verbs (present tense)
Several verbs we use frequently are irregular:
ir (to go): voy, vas, va, vamos, van
ser (to be): soy, eres, es, somos, son
oír (to hear): oigo, oyes, oye, oímos, oyen
several verbs are only irregular in the yo conjugation:
hacer (to do/to make): yo hago
saber (to know): yo sé
dar (to give): yo doy
tener and venir have very similar irregular conjugation:
tener (tengo, tienes, tiene, tenemos, tienen)
venir (vengo, vienes, viene, venimos, vienen)
Stem changing verbs
There are three categories of verbs that change in a consistent way in all conjugations but nosotros.
poder (o:ue): to be able to
(puedo, puedes, puede, podemos, pueden)
querer (e:ie): to want
(quiero, quieres, quiere, queremos, quieren)
pedir (e:i): to ask for
(pido, pides, pide, pedimos, piden)
Tarea: students should study and know everything we went over today for Tuesday's class
