Conjugating the Spanish Verb Comprar (to Shop/Buy)

Spanish verbs fall into different groups, and each group is conjugated a little differently. If you’re going to master Spanish verbs like comprar, 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).

Comprar (kohm-prahr) (to shop/buy) is a regular -ar verb, so its conjugation is pretty straightforward. Here it is in the present tense:

The following examples show you comprar in action:

• Compro regalos para tu familia. (I buy gifts for your family.)

• Patricia compra libros en la librería. (Patricia buys books at the bookstore.)

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

You use the preterit tense like this:

• ¿Compraste una tarjeta para tu mamá? (Did you buy a card for your mom?)

• Ustedes compraron todo lo que estaba en venta. (You bought everything that was on sale.)

Here are some examples of the imperfect tense:

• Mi hermano compraba papel para su impresora (My brother used to buy paper for his printer)

• ¿Compraban ellos siempre en la misma tienda? (Did they use to always buy at the same store?)

The following samples put the future tense to work:

• Lo compraré aunque sea muy caro (I will buy it even if it is too expensive.)

• ¿Comprarán ustedes todo lo que les muestre? (Will you buy everything I show you?)