Spanish -IR Verbs: Vivir, Escribir, Recibir and the Rest

Spanish -ir verbs, like vivir (to live), use the same endings as -er verbs almost everywhere, and you can hear the difference in just one everyday word: comemos (we eat) but vivimos (we live). Of the 710 verbs in our Spanish conjugator, 119 end in -ir, exactly as many as end in -er. So if you already know comer, this group costs you five forms, not a whole new table.

If you’ve worked through -ar verbs, the method is the one you already use: stem plus ending. Here we build everything on vivir, find the five spots where it parts ways with comer, run it through four tenses and end with 35 -ir verbs you’ll actually say. For the big picture of all three groups, see Spanish verbs.

How to conjugate Spanish -ir verbs: drop -ir, add the ending

To conjugate -ir verbs, drop the -ir from the infinitive and add an ending that tells who is acting and when. Vivir leaves the stem viv-. Add -o and you get vivo, “I live.” Add -imos and you get vivimos, “we live.” The stem holds the meaning; the ending carries the person and the tense.

The Real Academia Española uses partir as the model verb for this group in its conjugation tables. We use vivir because you’ll need it sooner, in your first conversation about where you live. The pattern is identical.

Here are the -ir Spanish verb endings in the present tense:

Person	Ending	vivir
yo	-o	vivo
tú	-es	vives
vos	-ís	vivís
él, ella, usted	-e	vive
nosotros	-imos	vivimos
vosotros (Spain)	-ís	vivís
ellos, ellas, ustedes	-en	viven

In Argentina, Uruguay and much of Central America, vos replaces tú: vos vivís. Vosotros is the plural “you” of Spain; in Latin America the plural is ustedes viven. With -ir verbs, vos and vosotros happen to share the same form.

-ir verbs vs the verb ir

An “-ir verb” is simply a verb with an infinitive that ends in those two letters. Ir (to go) is one single verb, and a wildly irregular one: voy, vas, va. It has its own page, ir conjugation, and none of what follows applies to it.

-er and -ir Spanish verbs: where they split

Put comer next to vivir and most forms match, ending for ending. The -er and -ir Spanish verbs part ways in only five places. Every one of them involves nosotros, vosotros or vos:

Form	comer (-er)	vivir (-ir)
nosotros, present	comemos	vivimos
vosotros, present (Spain)	coméis	vivís
vos, present	comés	vivís
vosotros command (Spain)	comed	vivid
vos command	comé	viví

Everything else lines up: comí / viví in the preterite, comía / vivía in the imperfect, comeré / viviré in the future, coma / viva in the present subjunctive. That’s why most textbooks teach -er and -ir Spanish verbs together and then add a footnote. The footnote is the table above.

If you speak with Argentines or Uruguayans, you’ll hear the vos form constantly:

The trap for English speakers is vivemos. It looks reasonable, since comemos exists, but it isn’t Spanish. The -ir group keeps its i in nosotros: vivimos, escribimos, recibimos.

-ir verbs in the past and the future

Preterite. For actions that happened and finished, -ir verbs take exactly the -er endings: viví, viviste, vivió, vivimos, vivisteis, vivieron. The accent marks on viví and vivió matter; they put the stress on the last syllable. When to choose this tense is covered in the Spanish preterite tense.

Imperfect. For background and “used to,” the endings are -ía with an accent mark on the í in every person: vivía, vivías, vivíamos. Same as -er again. The imperfect in Spanish explains when it beats the preterite.

Future. Keep the whole infinitive and add the ending: vivir + -é = viviré. These future endings are shared by all three groups, so there’s nothing new to learn.

-ir Spanish verb endings in one chart

These are the -ir Spanish verb endings in the four tenses you’ll meet first, all on vivir. The three forms in bold are the only cells where an -er verb would look different; every other cell has the same ending you’d use with comer.

Person	Present	Preterite	Imperfect	Future
yo	vivo	viví	vivía	viviré
tú	vives	viviste	vivías	vivirás
vos	vivís	viviste	vivías	vivirás
él, ella, usted	vive	vivió	vivía	vivirá
nosotros	vivimos	vivimos	vivíamos	viviremos
vosotros (Spain)	vivís	vivisteis	vivíais	viviréis
ellos, ellas, ustedes	viven	vivieron	vivían	vivirán

Look at nosotros: vivimos means both “we live” and “we lived.” With -er verbs the two are different (comemos, comimos), so this is one place where the -ir group is easier than the -er group. Context tells you which one you’re hearing.

Every form of this chart has audio on the vivir conjugation page, and vivir is one of the verbs in our printable verb tables.

35 common -ir verbs

Here are 35 regular Spanish -ir verbs, sorted by topic. Each one follows the conjugation pattern of vivir in every simple tense. A linked verb opens a page where you can hear every form and see it in a sentence; the others still conjugate in the conjugator, they just don’t have their full write-up yet. Verbs marked † break the pattern in one form only, the past participle: escrito, descrito, abierto, cubierto, descubierto, impreso (imprimido is also correct).

Life and home

Verb	Meaning	Yo, present	Yo, preterite
vivir	to live	vivo	viví
compartir	to share	comparto	compartí
subir	to go up, to upload	subo	subí
abrir†	to open	abro	abrí
cubrir†	to cover	cubro	cubrí
sufrir	to suffer	sufro	sufrí
existir	to exist	existo	existí
unir	to join, to unite	uno	uní
dividir	to divide, to split	divido	dividí

Words and paper

Verb	Meaning	Yo, present	Yo, preterite
escribir†	to write	escribo	escribí
describir†	to describe	describo	describí
imprimir†	to print	imprimo	imprimí
discutir	to argue, to discuss	discuto	discutí
debatir	to debate	debato	debatí
insistir	to insist	insisto	insistí
admitir	to admit	admito	admití
añadir	to add	añado	añadí
interrumpir	to interrupt	interrumpo	interrumpí

Getting and giving

Verb	Meaning	Yo, present	Yo, preterite
recibir	to receive, to get	recibo	recibí
permitir	to allow	permito	permití
repartir	to hand out, to deliver	reparto	repartí
consumir	to consume	consumo	consumí
descubrir†	to discover	descubro	descubrí
resistir	to resist, to hold up	resisto	resistí

Things that happen

Verb	Meaning	Yo, present	Yo, preterite
decidir	to decide	decido	decidí
ocurrir	to happen	ocurro	ocurrí
cumplir	to keep (a promise), to turn (an age)	cumplo	cumplí
partir	to leave, to split	parto	partí
asistir	to attend	asisto	asistí
coincidir	to coincide, to agree	coincido	coincidí
aburrir	to bore	aburro	aburrí
sobrevivir	to survive	sobrevivo	sobreviví
confundir	to confuse	confundo	confundí
acudir	to go, to turn up	acudo	acudí
sacudir	to shake	sacudo	sacudí

Two notes from the list. Discutir usually means “to argue” in everyday Latin American Spanish, not a calm discussion. And cumplir is the verb for birthdays: Mañana cumplo treinta is “I turn thirty tomorrow.”

-ir verbs that look regular but aren’t

An -ir ending doesn’t promise a regular verb. Of the 119 Spanish -ir verbs in our conjugator, 43 are regular in every simple tense, 18 just adjust their spelling, 42 change their stem vowel and 16 are irregular in other ways. Here’s the map, without full tables. Each group has its own lesson.

Group	Examples	What happens	Where to learn it
e → ie	sentir, preferir, mentir	siento, prefiero, miento	stem changing verbs
e → i (only -ir)	pedir, servir, repetir, seguir, vestir	pido, sirvo, repito, sigo, visto	stem changing verbs
o → ue	dormir, morir	duermo, muero	stem changing verbs
-uir adds a y	construir, incluir	construyo, incluyo	irregular verbs
-gir: g becomes j	dirigir, elegir	dirijo, elijo	irregular verbs
yo ends in -go or -zco	salir, venir, decir, conducir	salgo, vengo, digo, conduzco	irregular verbs
a class of their own	oír, reír, ir	oigo, río, voy	each verb’s page

The stem change is the signature of this group. It hits 35% of -ir verbs, against 24% of -er verbs and 11% of -ar verbs. One kind, e → i, exists only here: 21 verbs, from pedir to seguir to decir. Stem changing -ir verbs also carry a smaller change into the preterite, which Spanish stem changing verbs walks through form by form.

Check yourself: -ir verbs

Pick the right form: it’s the quickest way to see if you can conjugate -ir verbs without looking at the chart. Some wrong answers borrow an -er ending on purpose.

For more sentences with audio, the regular verbs exercises mix all three groups in the present and the past. To drill one verb until it’s automatic, open the conjugation trainer with vivir or switch it to escribir.

Frequently asked questions

Are -ir verbs the same as -er verbs?

Almost. They share every ending except five forms. Three are in the present: vivimos, vivís (vosotros) and vivís (vos), against comemos, coméis and comés. The other two are the commands viví and vivid, against comé and comed.

Is escribir a regular verb?

Yes, in every simple tense: escribo, escribí, escribía, escribiré. Only the past participle is irregular: he escrito (I have written), never escribido.

Which -ir verbs should I learn first?

Start with vivir, escribir, abrir, recibir and subir. They’re regular, you’ll use them in your first weeks, and each one has its own page in our conjugator, where you can hear every form. Then add decidir and compartir.

Is ir an -ir verb?

Technically its infinitive ends in -ir, but it doesn’t follow the pattern at all: voy, fui, iba. Learn it on its own with the ir conjugation page.

About a third of all -ir verbs change their stem vowel, and the Spanish stem changing verbs lesson is where that story continues.