Conjugating the Spanish Verb Beber (to Drink)

Spanish verbs fall into different groups, and each group is conjugated a little differently. If you’re going to master Spanish verbs like beber, you need to be able to identify which group a verb belongs to: regular (follows regular conjugation rules for -ar, -er, and -ir verbs), stem-changing (morphs depending on how you use it in a sentence), spelling-changing (has consonant-spelling changes in some forms to follow pronunciation rules), or reflexive (reflects the action back on the subject of the sentence).

Beber (bveh-bvehr) (to drink) is a regular -er verb, so its conjugation is pretty straightforward. Here it is in the present tense:

The following examples show you beber in action:

• ¿Bebes agua todos los días? (Do you drink water every day?)

• Sí. Bebo mucha agua todos los días. (Yes. I drink a lot of water every day.)

Need to know how to conjugate beber in another tense? The following tables show you its preterit, imperfect, and future forms.

You use the preterit tense like this:

• ¿Bebieron ustedes vino en la fiesta? (Did you drink wine at the party?)

• No. Bebimos cerveza pero no bebimos vino. (No. We drank beer but we did not drink wine.)

Here are some examples of the imperfect tense:

• ¿Bebían tus hermanos cuando eran jóvenes? (Did your brothers used to drink when they were young?)

• Sí. Ellos bebían, pero no mucho. (Yes. They used to drink, but not much.)

The following samples put the future tense to work:

• ¿Beberás conmigo este fin de semana? (Will you drink with me this weekend?)

• Sí. Beberé contigo este sábado. (Yes. I will drink with you this Saturday.)