Sentir is one of the most important irregular verbs in Spanish — it appears in virtually every GCSE and A-Level task.
Practice sentir free →Sentir means 'to feel' and, in lo siento, 'to be sorry'. It is a stem-changing verb: e becomes ie in the present (siento, sientes) and e becomes i in the third-person preterite (sintió, sintieron). The reflexive sentirse describes how you feel (me siento bien), essential for health and wellbeing topics. Plain sentir can take a noun (siento frío). Because describing feelings and apologising both come up regularly, sentir is high-value.
Quick facts
Sentir (to feel) is a high-frequency irregular -ir verb.
Real sentences across different tenses — the kind of thing you'd actually say or write.
Sentirse: me siento cansado (I feel tired).
Lo siento (I'm sorry); siento molestarte.
Siento frío (I feel cold).
e→ie in present, e→i in 3rd-person preterite (sintió).
Fixed expressions worth knowing — they come up in listening, reading and writing tasks.
Idiomatic expressions
Sentir is a high-frequency irregular verb. Make sure you know the endings for each tense — especially the preterite and subjunctive, which is where marks are most often lost.
Stem-changing (e→ie) in all forms except nosotros and vosotros.
A different stem change applies here (e→i, not e→ie), but only in the él and ellos forms.
The gerund of sentir is irregular: sintiendo (e→i stem change).
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 sentir now →Three questions. Press Enter to check each answer.
yo: siento, tú: sientes, él: siente, nosotros: sentimos, vosotros: sentís, ellos: sienten
Sentir is irregular.
Use sentir 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 sentir 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. Sentir 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.