Conjugating the Spanish Verb Escribir (to Write)

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

Escribir (ehs-kree-bveer) (to write) is a regular -ir verb, so its conjugation is pretty straightforward. Here it is in the present tense:

The following examples show you escribir in action:

• Escribo una carta a mis padres. (I write a letter to my parents.)

• Juan escribe su diario. (Juan writes his diary.)

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

You use the preterit tense like this:

• Tú escribiste la carta. (You wrote the letter.)

• ¿Escribió María a su mamá? (Did María write to her mother?)

Here are some examples of the imperfect tense:

• Escribíamos con tinta cuando éramos niños. (We used to write with ink when we were kids.)

• Los profesores de la universidad escribían con cuidado (The university professors used to write carefully.)

The following samples put the future tense to work:

• ¿Escribirán ellos los exámenes? (Will they write their exams?)

• Sí. Los escribirán mañana. (Yes. They will write them tomorrow.)