This is lesson 17 in Crashed Culture’s Spanish grammar series.
Volver a hacer & beyond
If you’ve been following along, you already know that we only conjugate the first verb when we have 2 verbs side-by-side. Let’s talk a little bit more about that. In particular, let’s talk about 3 verb pairings that the Spanish language uses a lot to express certain ideas.
The three verb pairings we’re going to talk about are volver a, acaber de, and ir a. They help us talk about a lot of things, including our very first chance talking about things in a tense other than the present one!
Volver a hacer
First: volver a. As you (hopefully) already know by now, volver means to return. However, stick that a at the end of it, and we have a phrase expressing that we’re doing something again.
|Volver a hacer||to do again|
|Volver a estudiar||to study again|
|Volver a cargar||to load again (reload)|
And remember: volver is a stem-changer! For example:
|Vuelvo a comer||I eat again|
|Vuelven a hablar||They speak again|
|Vuelves a cantar||You sing again|
So, as you can see, you can use volver a like we use otra vez – it’ll just sound a little smoother in some scenarios.
Next up we have acabar de. Acabar de is more exciting because it roughly translates to “to have just done” something. Not only does this word not really exist in English, but it’s also our first foray into speaking in the past tense!
Now, the past tense is difficult for us English speakers, which is why we should celebrate this baby step. We use acabar de to talk about things that happened in the recent past. For example:
|Acabar de comer||to have just eaten|
|Acabar de votar||to have just voted|
|Acabar de llegar||to have just arrived|
Just like in the case of volver a, we conjugate acabar, but not the verb that’s just been done. For example:
|Acabo de notar||I just noticed|
|Acabas de caer||You just fell|
|Acaba de salir||She just left|
I know – acabar de + infinitive is fun, amirite?
Ir a + infinitive
Lastly, and fitting the theme of tip-toeing to different verb tenses, we have ir a + infinitive. You’ve probably seen this one before; in fact, you’ve probably used it before. Of all three phrases, ir a + infinitive is most commonly used and taught.
So. You know how we use acaber de + infinitive to talk about things that happened in the very recent past? Well, we use ir a + infinitive to talk about things that are happening in the very near future. For example:
|Ir a escribir||to be going to write|
|Ir a conducir||to be going to drive|
|Ir a cocinar||to be going to cook|
5 points if you can tell me which part of that we conjugate. Yup – we conjugate ir! This is where things get a tad hairy. Sorry! The verb ir (to go) comes with some peculiar conjugations. Like so:
Now, this tends to be considered a beginner-intermediate concept. Why? Well, look below. Ir a + infinitive roughly translates to “to be going to/will”. Take a look at the examples below – these two phrases are pretty interchangeable, at least in the context where ir a + infinitive is used.
|Voy al cine por la noche||I’m going to the movies for the night|
|¿Vas a la tienda hoy o mañana?||Are you going to the store today or tomorrow?|
|Va a perder su libro||She is going to forget her book|
|Vamos a un restaurante cada domingo||We go to a restaurant every Sunday|
|Vais a ver que es el problema||You will see what the problem is|
|Van a ganar el juego como siempre||They will win the game like always|
Volver a hacer & beyond: a review
These three phrases are real handy to have in your arsenal! They’re not difficult to conjugate on the fly, and they’re your first step to communicating in a tense other than the present.
- Volver + a: to do again
- Acabar + de: to have just
- Ir a + infinitive: to be going to
- Volver, acabar, and ir need to be conjugated, but the next verb doesn’t