How to conjugate 'ir' in Spanish: complete guide across all tenses

Every Tuesday I go to the supermarket. For real. Todos los martes voy al supermercado.

For talking about going places in Spanish we'll need the verb ir (to go). And to use ir, we have to conjugate it.

If I want to say something like: I go to the gym on Fridays, I'll have to conjugate ir in the present tense. As a reminder, we use the present tense for habits, for things that we usually do.

And how do we conjugate ir in the present tense? It goes like this:

• Yo voy

• Tú vas

• Él / ella / usted va

• Nosotros/as vamos

• Vosotros/as vais

• Ellos / ellas / ustedes van

We always go to a place in Spanish. And "to" is a. If I want to say that I go to the coffee shop on Fridays I'll say: yo voy a la cafetería los viernes. "To the" is a la. However, when instead of a la we have a el, for places that are masculine, we have to combine a el into al. So "I go to the gym on Fridays" will be yo voy al gimnasio los viernes.

If I want to ask you: do you go to the gym? That will be: ¿tú vas al gimnasio?

If I want to ask: Does María go to the gym? That will be: ¿María va al gimnasio?

We go to the gym: nosotros vamos al gimnasio. Etc.

If we want to use ir in the past tense, for saying things like: yesterday I went to the gym, we'll have to memorize the pretérito perfecto simple conjugation for ir. And it goes like this:

• Yo fui

• Tú fuiste

• Él / ella / usted fue

• Nosotros/as fuimos

• Vosotros/as fuisteis

• Ellos / ellas / ustedes fueron

So "yesterday I went to the gym" will be: ayer fui al gimnasio. Did you go to the gym yesterday? ¿Fuiste al gimnasio ayer? Did María go to the gym? ¿María fue al gimnasio? We went to the gym: Fuimos al gimnasio.

We have another past tense in Spanish: the pretérito imperfecto tense. We use it for things that we used to do. When I was in college, I used to go to the gym all the time. And how do we conjugate ir in the pretérito imperfecto tense?

• Yo iba

• Tú ibas

• Él / ella / usted iba

• Nosotros/as íbamos

• Vosotros/as ibais

• Ellos / ellas / ustedes iban

En la universidad yo iba mucho al gimnasio. María en la universidad también iba mucho al gimnasio. ¿Tú ibas mucho al gimnasio en la universidad? Nosotros íbamos al gimnasio cada día en la universidad.

Let's talk about the future. We have two options. The most common future tense in Spanish is the one formed with ir in the present tense plus the preposition a, plus the infinitive form of a verb. So "I'm going to sing": voy a cantar. Since we want to talk about going to the gym, we'll have to use ir twice. Tomorrow I'll go to the gym: Mañana voy a ir al gimnasio. María también va a ir al gimnasio. ¿Tú vas a ir al gimnasio mañana? Nosotros vamos a ir al gimnasio mañana.

The second option is the futuro simple. And how do we conjugate ir in the future tense?

• Yo iré

• Tú irás

• Él / ella / usted irá

• Nosotros/as iremos

• Vosotros/as iréis

• Ellos / ellas / ustedes irán

Mañana iré al gimnasio. Mañana María irá al gimnasio. Mañana nosotros iremos al gimnasio.

When speaking, we tend to use voy a ir more often. The futuro simple tends to sound more formal.

In English we also have these two compound tenses: the present perfect and the past perfect: I have gone and I had gone. In Spanish, the equivalents are the pretérito perfecto compuesto and the pluscuamperfecto de indicativo.

To conjugate ir in the pretérito perfecto compuesto tense, we have to conjugate the auxiliary verb haber in the present tense:

• Yo he

• Tú has

• Él / ella / usted ha

• Nosotros/as hemos

• Vosotros/as habéis

• Ellos / ellas / ustedes han

And then we add ir in the participle form, which is ido.

So "I have gone": yo he ido.

I've gone to that gym many times. He ido a ese gimnasio muchas veces. María has gone to that gym many times. María ha ido a ese gimnasio muchas veces.

And to conjugate ir in the pretérito pluscuamperfecto tense, we conjugate haber in the pretérito imperfecto tense:

• Yo había

• Tú habías

• Él / ella / usted había

• Nosotros/as habíamos

• Vosotros/as habíais

• Ellos / ellas / ustedes habían

This tense is a past inside the past. By the time this thing happened, I had already gone to the gym. Cuando esto ocurrió yo ya había ido al gimnasio.

I had gone: yo había ido. I had already gone: Yo ya había ido.

One more thing, in Spanish, we have this thing called the subjunctive mood. Basically there are certain triggers or inductors that force us to use an alternate tense. I don't believe that you [subjunctive]. I want you to do something, we phrase it: I want that you [subjunctive].

So "I want you to go to the gym", we'll phrase it: I want that you go to the gym, and in this case we'll have to use ir in the present subjunctive tense. How do we conjugate ir in the present subjunctive tense:

• Yo vaya

• Tú vayas

• Él / ella / usted vaya

• Nosotros/as vayamos

• Vosotros/as vayáis

• Ellos / ellas / ustedes vayan

So "I want that you go to the gym": quiero que tú vayas al gimnasio.

If I don't believe you went to the gym yesterday, since "I don't believe" is a subjunctive trigger, we'll have to conjugate ir in the past subjunctive, the pretérito imperfecto de subjuntivo:

• Yo fuera

• Tú fueras

• Él / ella / usted fuera

• Nosotros/as fuéramos

• Vosotros/as fuerais

• Ellos / ellas / ustedes fueran

So "I don't believe you went to the gym yesterday": No creo que tú fueras al gimnasio ayer.

And lastly, the imperative: Please go to the gym. Por favor, ve al gimnasio. This one is easy.