Forming the Gerund in Spanish: Rules, Sentences and Exercises

Forming the Gerund in Spanish: Rules, Sentences and Exercises

By Soraya Delachica

Today you will learn how to form the gerund in Spanish, a very useful grammatical structure to talk about activities in progress. The lesson includes examples of sentences with verbs in gerund form, simple explanations and a list of verbs that have irregular gerunds. Let’s start …

​What is the gerund in Spanish?

​The Royal Spanish Academy defines the gerund in Spanish like this:

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An invariable form of the verb that ends in “-ando” in the first conjugation (amando, saltando) and “-iendo (or -yendo)” in the second and third conjugation (comiendo, leyendo, viviendo). This modification of the verb is useful to talk about actions in progress, without indication of time, number or person, and whose behavior is similar to that of adverbs in its grammatical functioning.

​What is the gerund in Spanish?

Simply, the gerund in Spanish is a change we make to the verb’s ending to talk about actions in progress or simultaneous actions. It corresponds to the “-ing” structure of the English language, with the basic difference that in Spanish, the ending will not be “-ing” but “-ando” or “-iendo” depending on the verb’s form in infinitive. This way, a verb like “cantar” (to sing) would change to “cantando” (singing), whereas a verb like “comer” (to eat) would change to “comiendo” (eating).

​From -AR to -ANDO

First, verbs that end in -AR in infinitive (first conjugation), will change their ending from -AR to ANDO. Pay attention to these examples of sentences with the gerund in Spanish

​Jugar/Jugando – Los niños están jugando en el parque.

Play / Playing – The children are playing in the park.

From -ER/-IR to -IENDO

In the case of verbs that end in -ER in infinitive (second conjugation) and -IR (third conjugation), the ending will change to -IENDO to form the gerund in Spanish, as in the following examples:

Conocer/Conociendo – Estamos conociendo mejor la ciudad.

Know/Knowing – We are getting to know the city better

The gerund of stem-changing verbs in Spanish

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You have already seen that in order to form the gerund in Spanish, we only need to modify the verb’s ending. However, this does not apply to all verbs in the language, particularly for “stem changing verbs“, which are a group of verbs that, apart from changing their ending, change their stem (the first part of the verb) when conjugated. For example, when conjugating the verbs “decir (to say), repetir (to repeat) and sentir(to feel)” in the present tense and in the gerund form, we must replace the vowel “e” for “i”, so we will say “diciendo, repitiendo, sintiendo”. Note that the ending changes according to the rules we presented earlier (from -ar to -ando, etc.) Pay attention to the following examples of sentences with a group of stem-changing verbs in gerund form:

​Seguir/Siguiendo – Estamos siguiendo las instrucciones.

Follow / Following – We are following the instructions.

Dormir/Durmiendo – Papá esta durmiendo en el sofá.

Sleep/Sleeping – Dad is sleeping on the sofa.

Spellig changes when forming the gerund in Spanish

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In addition to the previous cases, there are other situations in which the ending of the verb will change from “-IR / -ER” to “YENDO”, adding the letter “Y” and therefore making a spelling change to the verb. Next, we present to you the most important verbs that you must remember and that undergo spelling changes in the gerund in Spanish.

Leer/Leyendo – Martín está leyendo un libro de misterio en el autobús.

Read/Reading – Martin is reading a mystery book on the bus.

​Ir/Yendo – Estamos yendo a la farmacia para comprar medicina.

Go / Going – We are going to the pharmacy to buy medicine.