Cantar means 'to sing', and it is a textbook regular -ar verb that appears in hobbies, music and free-time topics. Canto en un coro (I sing in a choir), cantamos juntos (we sang together). Because it is perfectly regular, teachers often use it to demonstrate the -ar pattern, which makes it doubly useful: handy in its own right and a clean model for hundreds of similar verbs. The expression cantar las cuarenta ('to give someone a piece of your mind') is a fun idiom to know. As ever with -ar verbs, mind the preterite accents (canté, cantó).
Quick facts
Cantar (to sing) is a regular -ar verb.
Real sentences across different tenses — the kind of thing you'd actually say or write.
Canto en la ducha (I sing in the shower).
Cantamos juntos (we sing together).
A clean -ar verb for demonstrating the pattern.
Cantar las cuarenta (to give someone a telling-off).
Fixed expressions worth knowing — they come up in listening, reading and writing tasks.
Idiomatic expressions
Cantar is a regular verb. Make sure you know the endings for each tense — especially the preterite and subjunctive, which is where marks are most often lost.
cantar is a regular -ar verb — it follows the standard -ar pattern in every tense. That makes it a good one to drill: if you know cantar, you know the template for all regular -ar verbs.
Type conjugations from memory and get instant feedback. That's how you actually build the automatic recall the exam needs — not from reading tables.
Practice cantar now →Three questions. Press Enter to check each answer.
yo: canto, tú: cantas, él: canta, nosotros: cantamos, vosotros: cantáis, ellos: cantan
Cantar is a regular -ar verb following the standard -ar pattern.
Use cantar in multiple tenses to show range — present, preterite and future at minimum. This is a key criterion for higher GCSE marks.
Verbs that are easy to confuse with cantar or that behave like it.
This reference is written for UK GCSE and A-Level Spanish learners and their teachers. It is designed for exam revision: every form is checked against standard conjugation rules, and the examples reflect the registers and topics that come up in the AQA, Edexcel and Eduqas specifications. Cantar is a high-frequency verb and appears often in exam papers. For active recall, use the free practice tool rather than only reading the tables.
Last updated 2 August 2026. Written by Daniel Holmes for GCSE & A-Level Spanish students.