How to learn those pesky Spanish verb forms

Duolingo Owl

I am having such a great time practicing languages on Duolingo recently that my husband Wayne became curious (he hates to miss out on any fun).  So several weeks ago he enrolled in his own account on the Duolingo Spanish program.  Wayne doesn't admit to being hooked on the program, but I see him working on it fairly frequently on his laptop or iPhone.  And I hear some fairly strong language when the program gives him an incorrect answer signal!

Lately Wayne's frustration with Spanish verb forms have caused me to think about how difficult it is for English speakers to conquer Spanish verb forms.  Why is this?   And what techniques might make learning Spanish verb forms more accessible?

To look at the why question, a possible answer may be the difference in amounts of English and Spanish verb forms.  If you want to say 'talk' in English in the present tense, it generally doesn't matter who the subject of 'talk' is.  It's 'I talk', 'you talk', 'we talk', 'they talk', with the only slightly different forms being 'he talks' and 'she talks'.  So when you speak English, you don't have to pay much attention to the verb form.   Yes, there are some  irregular verb forms, like 'I am', or  'he is', but the regular forms are a piece of cake.

Now enter Spanish, a daughter language of Latin, with seemingly endless verb endings.  More often than not, when the subject changes, so does the verb ending.  To speak Spanish, you have to constantly be aware of matching the ending to the subject.  For the verb 'to talk' in the present tense, the forms are,  'yo hablO', 'tú hablAS' ''él/ella/usted hablA, 'nosotros hablAMOS', 'ellos/ellas/ustedes hablAN. The English-speaking brain isn't used to having to put attention on verb endings.  That's why I believe that Spanish verb forms seem to be a hurdle for English speakers.  We are required to pay close attention to an aspect of language that is not required to the same extent in our native language.

Spanish verb conjugation

Be that as it may, when all of the analyzing and complaining is over,  Spanish verb forms must be conquered in order to communicate in Spanish.  Some English speakers try to circumvent the Spanish verb system by using the main verb form without any endings. So they say 'yo hablAR' (which  translates to 'I to speak"), which sounds pretty strange to the Spanish-speaking ear!

When I first studied Spanish in school (back in the Dark Ages), we were required to write out  full conjugations of Spanish verbs, both regular and irregular, in a seemingly endless number of tenses.  That was the traditional method of making sure we knew which verb forms matched each subject.  I can still remember pages and pages of two-sided notebook paper filled with my handwritten verb conjugations.  We weren't allowed to actually use Spanish for communication until we knew all of those verb forms.  Whew!  Only the most dedicated language students made it through that obstacle course.  Fortunately I was one of them and continued to study Spanish.

Intellectual torture may be good for the mind and soul, but I believe there is a better and less painful way to learn Spanish verbs.   It  involves using the forms for real communication, not just learning the forms in the abstract. So, since we like to talk about ourselves so much, just getting used to putting an 'o' on the end of verbs when using the subject  "I"   would be a good start.  And then putting an 's' on the verb when talking directly to another person might be the next step.  I can imagine lots of simple conversations using just the 'I' and 'you' forms.  Then we could move on to more complicated communication.  Eventually conversational situations could be set up so that all possible subjects could be used.

Would there be Spanish language learners who would eventually want to see a full verb conjugation written out? Possibly, depending on their learning style. But I would like to suggest that the conversation practice should happen first and the abstract learning should follow as a synthesis.

I wish I would have been taught Spanish with a more conversational approach.  My mind gets very tired having to mentally run through a whole verb conjugation to select the right form.  And I know the person I am speaking to gets really tired waiting for me to do those mental gymnastics!