Cocinar means 'to cook', and it is a regular -ar verb that sits in the food, home and routine topics. Cocino la cena (I cook dinner), mi padre cocina muy bien (my dad cooks very well). Because it is regular, the forms are predictable, leaving you free to build detailed sentences about what you cook, when and for whom. It overlaps with preparar ('to prepare') and hacer ('to make') when talking about meals. Food is a guaranteed GCSE topic, so being able to describe cooking across present, past and future is reliably useful.
Quick facts
Cocinar (to cook) is a regular -ar verb.
Real sentences across different tenses — the kind of thing you'd actually say or write.
Cocino la cena (I cook dinner).
Cocina muy bien (he cooks very well).
Preparar and hacer also work for meals.
Useful for describing meals and who cooks at home.
Fixed expressions worth knowing — they come up in listening, reading and writing tasks.
Idiomatic expressions
cocinar 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 cocinar, 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 cocinar now →Three questions, no account needed. Type the form, then press Enter or tap Check.
yo: cocino, tú: cocinas, él: cocina, nosotros: cocinamos, vosotros: cocináis, ellos: cocinan
The past participle is cocinado (he cocinado) and the gerund is cocinando (estoy cocinando).
Verbs that are easy to confuse with cocinar or that behave like it.
Cocinar is on the AQA, Edexcel and Eduqas GCSE Spanish vocabulary lists. Compare the exam boards.
Written by Daniel Holmes for GCSE & A-Level Spanish students.