Cansar Conjugation in Spanish
Introduction
cansar means "to tire" in English, and it is one of the verbs you will meet constantly in everyday Spanish — for tiring someone, or boring them. Learning it properly means more than memorising one form: the verb changes across thirteen tenses, and this page gives you every one of them, with the exact forms from the VerbFlow engine, so you can check any person or tense in seconds. Cansar is a regular -ar verb verb, and it is regular in every tense. That matters because the patterns on this page are the patterns you will reuse every time you speak or write. Work through the tables first, then read the notes under each tense — they explain when to use each tense and what to watch out for with this verb in particular. A natural example is: A Lucía le cansa el viaje tan largo. — "The such a long journey tires Lucía." Once you can say that sentence confidently, try changing the person and the tense using the tables below.
Quick facts
| Infinitive | cansar |
| Translation | to tire |
| Verb type | Regular -ar verb |
| Gerund | cansando |
| Past participle | cansado |
| Auxiliary | haber (all compound tenses) |
| Irregular tenses | regular in every tense |
Gustar-like verb: the thing that causes the feeling is the subject, and the person who feels it is the indirect object (a Lucía le cansa el viaje tan largo). The verb agrees with the thing, not with the person — that is why the él/ella form appears so often with this verb.
Full conjugation of cansar
Present indicative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | canso |
| tú | cansas |
| él / ella / Ud. | cansa |
| nosotros / nosotras | cansamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cansáis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cansan |
Preterite
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cansé |
| tú | cansaste |
| él / ella / Ud. | cansó |
| nosotros / nosotras | cansamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cansasteis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cansaron |
Imperfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cansaba |
| tú | cansabas |
| él / ella / Ud. | cansaba |
| nosotros / nosotras | cansábamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cansabais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cansaban |
Future
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cansaré |
| tú | cansarás |
| él / ella / Ud. | cansará |
| nosotros / nosotras | cansaremos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cansaréis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cansarán |
Conditional
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cansaría |
| tú | cansarías |
| él / ella / Ud. | cansaría |
| nosotros / nosotras | cansaríamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cansaríais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cansarían |
Present subjunctive
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | canse |
| tú | canses |
| él / ella / Ud. | canse |
| nosotros / nosotras | cansemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | canséis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cansen |
Imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms)
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cansara |
| tú | cansaras |
| él / ella / Ud. | cansara |
| nosotros / nosotras | cansáramos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cansarais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cansaran |
Present perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | he cansado |
| tú | has cansado |
| él / ella / Ud. | ha cansado |
| nosotros / nosotras | hemos cansado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habéis cansado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | han cansado |
Pluperfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | había cansado |
| tú | habías cansado |
| él / ella / Ud. | había cansado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habíamos cansado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habíais cansado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habían cansado |
Future perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | habré cansado |
| tú | habrás cansado |
| él / ella / Ud. | habrá cansado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habremos cansado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habréis cansado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habrán cansado |
Conditional perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | habría cansado |
| tú | habrías cansado |
| él / ella / Ud. | habría cansado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habríamos cansado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habríais cansado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habrían cansado |
Imperative — affirmative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| tú | cansa |
| él / ella / Ud. | canse |
| nosotros / nosotras | cansemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cansad |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cansen |
Imperative — negative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| tú | canses |
| él / ella / Ud. | canse |
| nosotros / nosotras | cansemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | canséis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cansen |
Gerund: cansando · Past participle: cansado
Cansar in every tense — notes and examples
Present indicative
The present is the tense for habits, facts and what is happening now. It is the first tense to master, because the present subjunctive and the affirmative imperative are both built from the present yo form. Example: A Lucía le cansa el viaje tan largo. — "The such a long journey tires Lucía."
Preterite
The preterite is for completed actions in the past — things that started and finished at a definite moment. Use it for a single event, a sequence of events, or an action with a clear end. Example: Ayer, a Lucía le cansó el viaje tan largo. — "Yesterday, the such a long journey tired Lucía."
Imperfect
The imperfect is for the past without a definite end: habits, background scenes, descriptions and actions in progress when something else happened. It never states when the action finished. Example: Antes, a Lucía le cansaba el viaje tan largo. — "Before, the such a long journey tired Lucía."
Future
The future is for what will happen, and also for guesses about the present ("I wonder if…"). For regular verbs it is the infinitive plus the endings -é, -ás, -á, -emos, -éis, -án. Example: Mañana, a Lucía le cansará el viaje tan largo. — "Tomorrow, the such a long journey will tire Lucía."
Conditional
The conditional is for what would happen — polite requests, hypothetical results and reported expectations. It shares its stem with the future, so any irregular future stem appears here too. Example: A Lucía le cansaría el viaje tan largo si lo viera. — "The such a long journey would tire Lucía if she saw it."
Present subjunctive
The present subjunctive is for wishes, doubts, emotions and other non-facts after que, and after expressions such as ojalá, es importante que or no creo que. It is not a tense for stating facts. Example: Espero que a Lucía le canse el viaje tan largo. — "I hope the such a long journey tires Lucía."
Imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms)
The imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms) is for wishes and doubts about the past, and for the if-part of hypothetical sentences (si + imperfect subjunctive, conditional). This page shows the -ra forms from the engine. Example: Si a Lucía le cansara el viaje tan largo, sonreiría. — "If the such a long journey tired Lucía, she would smile."
Present perfect
The present perfect (haber + past participle) is for past actions connected to the present — recent events, experience, or something that has just happened. The auxiliary is always haber. Example: A Lucía le ha cansado el viaje tan largo. — "The such a long journey has tired Lucía."
Pluperfect
The pluperfect (había + past participle) is the past of the past: something that had already happened before another past event. Example: A Lucía le había cansado el viaje tan largo. — "The such a long journey had tired Lucía."
Future perfect
The future perfect (habré + past participle) is for something that will already be finished by a future moment, or for a guess about the past. It is less common in speech than the simple future. Example: A Lucía le habrá cansado el viaje tan largo. — "The such a long journey will have tired Lucía."
Conditional perfect
The conditional perfect (habría + past participle) is for what would have happened — the past of the conditional, used for regrets and unreal past conditions. Example: A Lucía le habría cansado el viaje tan largo. — "The such a long journey would have tired Lucía."
Imperative — affirmative
The affirmative imperative is for direct orders, instructions and invitations. The tú form comes from the present él/ella form, and the formal, nosotros and plural forms come from the present subjunctive. Example: ¡canse a los niños con el viaje tan largo, por favor! — "Please tire the children with the such a long journey!"
Imperative — negative
The negative imperative (no + subjunctive) is for telling someone not to do something. All five persons come from the present subjunctive, which is why they look different from the affirmative tú form. Example: No canses a los niños con el viaje tan largo. — "Do not tire the children with the such a long journey."
Example sentences with cansar
A Lucía le cansa el viaje tan largo. — "The such a long journey tires Lucía."
A Lucía y a Juan les cansan las reuniones sin fin. — "The the endless meetings tire Lucía and Juan."
Ayer, a Lucía le cansó el viaje tan largo. — "Yesterday, the such a long journey tired Lucía."
Ayer, a todos les cansaron las reuniones sin fin. — "Yesterday, the the endless meetings tired everyone."
De niña, a Lucía le cansaba el viaje tan largo. — "As a child, the such a long journey tired Lucía."
Mañana, a Lucía le cansará las reuniones sin fin. — "Tomorrow, the the endless meetings will tire Lucía."
A Lucía le cansaría el viaje tan largo si pudiera verlo. — "The such a long journey would tire Lucía if she could see it."
A Lucía le ha cansado el viaje tan largo muchas veces. — "The such a long journey has tired Lucía many times."
Espero que a Lucía le canse el viaje tan largo. — "I hope the such a long journey tires Lucía."
La historia me está cansando ahora mismo. — "The story is tiring me right now."
Common mistakes with cansar
1. Dropping the accent on the preterite yo form
The preterite yo form is cansé — with the accent. Without it the word is misspelled, and in some verbs the accent is the only thing separating one tense from another.
2. Confusing cansar with aburrir (to bore)
cansar means "to tire", while aburrir means "to bore". They overlap in English but they are not interchangeable in Spanish: use cansar when you mean tiring someone, or boring them, and aburrir for its own meaning. Check the conjugation of aburrir before choosing.
3. Mixing up the preterite and the imperfect
Ayer yo cansé el viaje tan largo (preterite: one finished event yesterday) is not the same as antes yo cansaba el viaje tan largo (imperfect: what used to happen). If you can add "yesterday" or "last week", you usually want the preterite; if you can add "used to", you want the imperfect.
4. Saying ✗ yo canso when you mean the feeling
With verbs like cansar the thing that causes the feeling is the subject, and the person is the indirect object: a Lucía le cansa el viaje tan largo. Saying yo canso el viaje tan largo means you do the tireing, which is not what you mean here.
5. Forgetting that the verb agrees with the thing, not the person
Me cansan las reuniones sin fin is correct when the subject is plural — the verb agrees with the endless meetings, not with "me". Singular me cansa las reuniones sin fin would be wrong with a plural subject.
Quiz: cansar
1. A Lucía le ___ el viaje tan largo.
a. canso b. cansa c. cansan
2. Ayer, a Lucía le ___ el viaje tan largo.
a. canso b. cansó c. cansa
3. Antes, a Lucía le ___ el viaje tan largo.
a. canso b. cansaba c. cansa
4. Mañana, a Lucía le ___ el viaje tan largo.
a. canso b. cansará c. cansa
5. A Lucía le ___ el viaje tan largo si lo viera.
a. canso b. cansaría c. cansa
6. Espero que a Lucía le ___ el viaje tan largo.
a. canso b. canse c. cansa
7. A Lucía le ___ el viaje tan largo varias veces.
a. canso b. ha cansado c. cansa
8. Me ___ las reuniones sin fin.
a. canso b. cansan c. cansa
9. La historia me está ___ ahora mismo.
a. cansado b. cansando c. cansa
10. A Lucía le ha ___ el viaje tan largo muchas veces.
a. cansando b. cansado c. cansa
Answer key
cansa — present tense, él/ella form — the thing is the subject.
cansó — preterite, él/ella form — one finished event yesterday.
cansaba — imperfect, él/ella form — a past habit or background.
cansará — future, él/ella form.
cansaría — conditional, él/ella form — a hypothetical.
canse — present subjunctive after 'espero que'.
ha cansado — present perfect, él/ella form (haber + participle).
cansan — present tense, ellos/ellas form — plural subject, so plural verb.
cansando — gerund — the progressive is estar + gerund.
cansado — past participle — the present perfect is haber + participle.
Frequently asked questions about cansar
What does cansar mean in English?
Cansar means "to tire". It is used for tiring someone, or boring them. A simple example is yo canso el viaje tan largo — "I tire such a long journey."
Is cansar regular or irregular?
Cansar is a regular -ar verb verb, and it is regular in every tense. The forms that most often catch learners out are the present yo form canso, the preterite yo form cansé and the past participle cansado — learn those three first, then fill in the rest from the tables above.
What is the gerund and the past participle of cansar?
The gerund is cansando (used for the progressive: estoy cansando) and the past participle is cansado (used with haber in all perfect tenses: he cansado). Both forms are used constantly, so they are worth memorising on their own.
How do I say "I tire" in the past?
It depends on the meaning. For one finished action use the preterite: ayer yo cansé el viaje tan largo — "yesterday I tired such a long journey". For a past habit or background use the imperfect: antes yo cansaba el viaje tan largo — "before, I tired such a long journey". The mistake most learners make is using one for the other.
Does cansar take the subjunctive?
Not usually. Cansar on its own takes the indicative — yo canso el viaje tan largo. You will meet the subjunctive with cansar only inside a larger construction that itself triggers it, such as no creo que or es importante que, and then the subjunctive form is canse.