Conjugating Querer’s Irregular Tenses in Spanish

Of the many irregular Spanish verbs querer is one of most commonly used and is highly irregular, and as such will require special attention from students. Querer is often utilized as the Spanish version of the English verb ‘to want’, but is also used instead
of the Spanish verb amar, meaning ‘to love’.

Querer is a stem changing verb which is a verb that is also called a ‘regular’ irregular verb and this is because the verb endings are the same as those of a regular verb, with the only exception being the preterite tense. In querer’s case the ‘e’ in the verb stem changes into ‘ie’ when it is conjugated in some tenses and in some of the other tenses the short sounding and single ‘r’ becomes a double ‘rr’.

However, the most extreme change is when the verb is conjugated in the past tenses, the stem ‘quer-’ changes to ‘quis-’ for no apparent reason!

As with every Spanish verb conjugation the obvious place to start is with the Present tense. The verb endings, as mentioned, mimic the formation of a regular -er verb, but the stem does change a little. These changes in  the stem also happens in the present tense of the Subjunctive as well as the Imperative.

Conjugation of Querer in the Present Tense

yo quiero – I want
tú quieres – you want
usted/él/ella quiere – you, he or she wants
nosotros/as queremos – we want
vosotros/as queréis – you (all) want
ustedes/ellos/ellas quieren – you (all), they want

It is worth noting that the 1st and second person plural stem does not change, and this is also the case for the other tenses that are affected by this irregularity.

Preterite Tense Conjugation

The preterite is a highly irregular tense for many verbs and querer is no exception, it’s stem transforms drastically as shown here and also the regular -er endings for yo and él/usted are replaced by -e and -o respectively:

yo quise – I wanted
tú quisiste – you wanted
usted/él/ella quiso – you, he or she wanted
nosotros/as quisimos – we wanted
vosotros/as quisisteis – you (all) wanted
ustedes/ellos/ellas quisieron – you (all), they wanted

Unlike the present tense the irregular conjugations covers all persons. This specific irregularity is also found in the Subjunctive Imperfect and Future conjugations and again applies to all forms.

Future Tense Conjugation

The final irregularity is met when using querer and is when the single -r transforms into the rolling -rr and this occurs when the verb is put into the Conditional and Future Tenses, once again this irregularity covers all formations in both of these tenses.

yo querré – I will want
tú querrás – you will want
usted/él/ella querrá – you, he or she will want
nosotros/as querremos – we will want
vosotros/as querréis – you (all) will want
ustedes/ellos/ellas querrán – you (all), they will want

So, as you can see, querer will take some effort to learngetting to grips with but with by using a Spanish verb conjugator for verb training there is no reason why querer cannot be mastered quickly and used confidently.

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