Sunday, July 26, 2020

Spanish Tip of the Day: the verb "ir" (to go)


SPANISH TIP OF THE DAY  2020-07-26
Today we review the verb “ir” which is a highly irregular verb. It is unique in Spanish because it’s the only verb that has no stem…remember that all other verbs in the infinitive, you drop the last two letters, known as the ending, and what’s left is the stem. In the case of IR, you have nothing left. So for ir (and its close cousin”irse”). you know the indicative tense (present tense) of ir very well now:  voy/vas/va/vamos/van.  It can stand alone to say where are you going (Adónde vas?)
voy a la piscina (I’m going to the pool);  
 ¿Vas a la tienda más tarde? (are you going to the store later?) ¿
Adonde va mañana?  Where is he going (to) tomortow. etc.

IR can also be used as a helping verb to describe things that will happen in the future. As in other helping verbs, it precedes the main verb. They helping verb is conjugated, the main verb remains in the infinitive. One often adds the word “a” (“to/towards) between the two verbs. For example:
Voy a renunciar mañana. (I will resign tomorrow). ¿Vas a caminar dos millas conmigo? (Will you go  walk 2 miles with me?). some call this the “poor man’s” future tense. You don’t have to learn those pesky future endings if you use IR instead.

In class, Vicky asked what is the command form (i.e.) for the tú (2nd person, familiar) form? The general rule is you take the 3rd person singular (in this case “va”) and use it as the 2nd person familiar command. Unfortunately, ir is an exception. instead of va. it is “ve”

Oh, and the difference between ir and irse is that ir = to go and irse = to leave. Irse is used quite commonly and I will bet it is the preferred form to say I'm leaving. e.g. “me voy”. or if you want someone to leave = “vete”

For more information about “ir”, pull up this very interesting article.

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