The 250 Most Common Catalan Verbs

Ranked by real-world frequency and an example sentence. Study all of them free with spaced repetition.

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The 250 Most Common Catalan Verbs: the list

Tips for learning Catalan verbs

• Learn ser and estar as a pair rather than as one word: both are glossed here as "to be," but Catalan splits the job between them, so drill the example sentences for each instead of memorising a single translation.
• haver and tenir are both "to have," but haver works mainly as the auxiliary before a past participle while tenir is the verb for possession; study both, and note which sentence pattern each one sits in.
• Sort the list into regular -ar verbs (parlar, pensar, passar, portar, arribar, necessitar) and irregular ones (poder, voler, saber, dir, tenir, venir, veure, sortir, creure); the regular -ar group shares one predictable pattern, so drilling a few of them goes a long way, while anar is an -ar verb that is irregular.
• Watch for verbs whose meaning shifts with context, like sentir: it is listed here as "to feel," but you will also meet it used for hearing something, so let the example sentence anchor the meaning rather than the English gloss alone.
• When you type answers in Vocab Voyage, do not stop at the infinitive — say the example sentence aloud with the verb conjugated, since top verbs like fer, dir, anar, venir and tenir are exactly the ones whose conjugated forms look little like the dictionary entry.
• Revisit look-alike pairs deliberately: ser/estar and haver/tenir are the two spots where English speakers most often pick the wrong "to be" or "to have," so test both members of each pair in the same session.