Querer Verb Conjugation in Spanish

Te quiero translates as "I love you," and it is a phrase Spanish speakers use to express their love for friends, family members, and love interests alike. It is worth noting that Spanish has a second verb for love, amar, which is regular and is typically used to express a more passionate kind of love.

Outside of that, if there is something you want or wish for, you can also use querer, even if there is not much love involved. If you're having a particularly long day, you can say something like Quiero que sea mañana (I want it to be tomorrow), even if there isn't anything particular to love about tomorrow.

You can also find querer in quite a few common expressions, some of which are sin querer (by accident or unintentionally), ¿qué quiere decir? (what does it mean?), dondequiera (wherever), cuandoquiera (whenever), and cualquiera (any/whichever).

Conjugations

Querer is a highly irregular verb and, other than in the imperfect, you will find irregularities in its conjugations in every tense of the indicative mood, so pay close attention to the following tables!

Present

Examples:

• Él te quiere mucho. - He loves you dearly.
• ¿Qué quieres comer? - What do you want to eat?

Imperfect

Examples:

• Jamás entendí qué quería decir eso. - I never understood what that meant.
• De chico quería ser futbolista. - As a child, I wanted to be a soccer player.

Preterite

Examples:

• Siempre quise viajar a Asia. - I always wanted to travel to Asia.
• Jorge y Silvina no quisieron venir. - Jorge and Silvina didn't want to come.

Future

Examples:

• ¿Me querrás cuando envejezca? - Will you love me when I grow older?
• Ya querrás irte de casa. - One day you will want to leave home.

Conditional

Examples:

• Fue entonces que supo que siempre la querría. - That's when he knew he would always love her.
• ¿Querrías trabajar si no lo necesitaras? - Would you want to work if you didn't need to?
• Now you can try to think of the different things you've wanted throughout your life and start practicing the use of querer.