Complete Handbook of Spanish Verbs: A Classic Reference

Book excerpt: Complete Handbook of Spanish Verbs: A Classic Reference is an invaluable reference for students, libraries, and anyone who communicates in Spanish. It provides • a quick and easy way to find the correct conjugation in all forms and tenses of the more than 4,500 Spanish verbs listed, verbs chosen as illustration of verbal changes and/or irregularities and for their frequency of usage, • the more than 5,500 irregular forms of those verbs identifying their infinitive, • a model for the full conjugation in all forms and tenses of every Spanish verb, including those not listed here, according to its category, • special charts to aid in understanding and mastering the Spanish verbal system. The book is organized in three parts. Section I: a list of more than 4,500 Spanish infinitives with one or more English equivalents and their more than 5,500 irregular forms to facilitate finding their infinitives. Each infinitive is followed by a reference number that indicates the chart giving its conjugation or that of the model verb whose pattern the infinitive follows. Sections II through X: a series of charts with • sample English translation possibilities for the various tenses and forms of Spanish verbs, • the formation, by stem and ending, of all regular verbal forms, • model verbs, each showing the full conjugation of the model verb and accompanied by a list, “Verbs of this Category,” with all the verbs in this book that follow that model. These include regular verbs, orthographic/spelling changing verbs, radical/stem changing verbs, verbs with accent shift, irregular verbs, and defective verbs. The table of contents provides, at a glance, a detailed outline of the various categories and subdivisions in these sections. Section XI: an alphabetical listing of the English translations given in the book for the Spanish infinitives found in the list at the beginning, in Section I. It must be noted that this is not intended to be a dictionary of English verbs. English verbs were not sought and then defined, rather the English equivalents given for the Spanish verbs were merely duplicated here, in alphabetical order in English.