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escribir, escribiendo, escrito
comer, comiendo, comido
correr, corriendo, corrido

These are all er/ir verbs, so the rules are the same for conjugating them (in this instance)

Get the “1001 Spanish Verbs” it’s a great book for Spanish students.

Or use this website

Peace

Learning Spanish Dvd:

Learn Spainish

write – escribir, escribiendo, escrito (irregular)
eat – comer, comiendo, comido (which means “eaten,” not “ate”)
run – correr (means “to run”), corriendo, corrido (means “run” like “had run” NOT “ran”)

All infinitive forms of spanish verbs end in -ar, -ir, and -er

For regular changing verbs, if the infinitive ends in -ar, like “hablar” take off the “-ar” and add “-ando.” For -er and -ir verbs, take off the last too letters and add “-iendo” like “comer -> comiendo” or “escribir -> escribiendo” These endings all form the English gerund which means “-ing.” Running, eating, etc.

This is called the present progressive tense which is ONLY used in spanish to refer to actions occuring right now. For example there are two ways to say, “I’m learning spanish.” One way refers to a habitual action, like “I’m learning Spanish because I want to go to Ecuador.” The other way means that “I’m learning spanish right now because I’m reading a response on Yahoo answers.”

“Yo aprendo el castellano” and “Yo estoy aprendiendo el castellano.”

Written, eaten, run, etc. are all past participles. For the -ar verbs, you drop the -ar and add “-ado.”

hablar – hablado
to speak – spoken

For -er -ir verbs you drop the end and add “ido”

comer – comido
to eat – eaten

vivir – vivido
to live – lived

To form the past participles in spanish, it can be a little trickier because there are many irregular verbs; verbs that don’t follow the rules, for example, these words:

escribir – escrito
to write – written

cubrir – cubierto
to cover – covered

abrir – abierto
to open – open(ed)

romper – roto
to break – broken

hacer – hecho
to do – done
to make – made

decir – dicho
to say – said
to tell – told

poner – puesto
to put – put (like “had put”)

ver – visto
to see – seen

Words like “ate” and “ran” or “wrote” are words that require a differect form of conjugation. There are three other ways to use the past tense in spanish: The preterite, the indicative imperfect, or the subjunctive imperfect.

To say “ate”
one may say: comió, comía, or comiera (which is the same as “comiese” depending on the region)

“He ate” as in “he ate at 12″ use the preterite
“Él comió a las doce”

“He ate” as in “he ate every day of his life,” use the imperfect indicative
“Él comía cada día de su vida”

“He ate” as in “If he ate, then he wouldn’t be hungry,” then use the imperfect subjunctive
“Si él comiera, que el no tendría hambre.”

Also, “he drank before he ate,” you must use the imperfect subjunctive.”
“Él bebió antes de que él comiera.”

“Él comió antes de que él bebiera.” means he ate before he drank.

If that’s not confusing enough, then you’ll love the fact that the verbs change even more to fit the subject pronoun.

I ate – yo comí, yo comía, yo comiera (comiese)

you ate – tú comiste, tú comías, tú comieras (comieses)

(there are 3 ways to say ‘you’ in spanish- they are- tú, vos, and usted–im not familiar with the vos conjugation)

he, she, or you ate – (él, ella, usted) comió, comía, or comiera (comiese)

we ate – nosotros comimos, comíamos, or comiéramos (comiésemos)

you-all ate (informal, Spain) – vosotros comisteis, comíais, or comiérais (comiéseis)

you-all ate (formal, latino-america) – ustedes comieron, comían, or comieran (comiesen)

Basically–
I’d recommend the 501 Spanish Verb book to save money. You don’t need to know 1001 verbs; you’ll likely catch on to the patterns after the 501st verb.

That book also explains how to change a verb into each tense and when, why, how, and where each tense is used.

I’d also recommend taking a few spanish classes.