What are the indicative INDICATIVE VERBS

It is true that, on some occasions, verbal modes they can be somewhat confusing when discerning one from the other. Is it difficult for you to identify the mode of a verb and therefore guess if it is in indicative, subjunctive or imperative? Do not worry, in a Teacher we have proposed to get you out of your doubts with at least one of these modes. This is how, in what follows, we will see a series of tricks so that you know what are the indicative verbs with examples and, in addition, we will tell you how to learn to identify them. We started!

In a Professor we have already covered the problem of explanation and exemplification of the indicative mood of Spanish verbs. But it is worth remembering briefly what defines this mode.

The indicative, as its name suggests, is the way it handles indicate, tell truth or lies, make reference to reality, time, space, etc. The action of the verb is usually linked to specific moment in which it is spoken or referred to, since this mode also allows us to travel to past or future situations with the use of past or future conjugations.

That is why is the most used and common mode in Spanish. If you need a more extensive explanation, we invite you to visit our extensive article on the callsign. But okay, how do I identify a verb in the indicative mood?

Examples of indicative verbs

Now that we know what indicative verbs are, we are going to offer you examples so that you can better understand the lesson. Thus, examples of indicative verbs are:

• Yesterday we DANCED all night.
• My daughter is still SLEEPING.
• I liked SINGING with you the other night.
• The girl has CRED until her mother has arrived.
• YOU HAVE NOT WON the chess game.
• I was late to school again.

To know how to identify if a verb is in the indicative, the first thing to do would be to know what is outside in this way. Obviously, what is not indicative would be any other mode (subjunctive or imperative), gerund or infinitive:

• Infinitive: The infinitive is the base form of a verb, that is, without conjugation. Run, buy, feel... They would be the forms in the infinitive that are not conjugated in any way and, therefore, not in the indicative either. It can also appear in compound form: have seen, having called, etc.
• Gerund:Herding which is gerund, and not indicative. Whenever we see a verb ending in -ando or -going is the gerund form (we also have the compound mode as having bought), and is therefore not indicative. Thus, we find examples such as: walking, having walked, drinking, having drunk, living, having lived, etc.
• Subjunctive: Despite the fact that on certain occasions it could be confused with the conditional (which is in the indicative mood), the subjunctive is a different mood from the indicative. It is here where we enter the world of imagination, possibility, assumption, theory or hypothesis. Usually (although not always) this mode appears in subordinate clauses and does not reflect reality. In addition, it can only be conjugated in three verb tenses: present, past and future.
• Imperative: Every verb that exercises an action of order or command belongs to the indicative mood. It cannot be formed in the first person (you are not going to send it to you) and, despite the fact that, in theory, there is some way to formulate its verbs in the future, it lacks verb tenses (beyond the present).

The task of knowing if a verb is indicative or not andit's pretty easy once some specific bases are understood. First of all, the essential thing would be to know what the indicative mode is (again we invite you to visit our article about it).

We have already seen what the callsign is not, as that is almost all the work we have to do to identify the mode. But there are a couple more tricks that can be used in the modal identification of the verb. What more data should we take into account to identify the indicative mode then?

If the verb refers to reality, it is indicative

For example, “Juan works in the flour factory ”is something real and is not an order (imperative) or a hypothesis (subjunctive).

The same would happen in the cases of past and future. If the action occurs in the real world, and is not a command, it would normally be in indicative mode. For example, “Vicenta came home last night "or" We we will walk all day in the forest ”they speak of reality at different times and would be indicative.

Yes, we can also lie indicatively. Even though the sentence “I am a superhero ”could be formulated as a joke, lie or imagination, it refers to an invented reality, but not hypothetical (that would be subjunctive). Therefore, "I am" belongs to the indicative mood. Similarly, the same would happen with the vast majority of stories and novels that we read, which despite belonging to the world of the imagination are usually written indicatively.

If the verb appears in the past indefinite or past perfect simple (I ate, you lived, bought, etc.)

It is indicative mood, since neither the subjunctive nor the imperative accept this conjugation. Likewise, the past tense is proper and exclusive to the indicative, although it is quite disused today (I have eaten, you have lived, I have bought, etc.).

The same would happen with the forms of the conditional, either simple (I would eat, you would sell, we would insist, etc.) or compound (I would have eaten, you would have sold, we would have insisted, etc.). Be careful not to confuse with the subjunctive mood.