Cuidar Conjugation in Spanish
Introduction
cuidar means "to take care of" in English, and it is one of the verbs you will meet constantly in everyday Spanish — for taking care of a person, an animal or a thing. 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. Cuidar 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: Cada día, yo cuido de mi abuela cada día. — "Every day, I take care of my grandmother every day." Once you can say that sentence confidently, try changing the person and the tense using the tables below.
Quick facts
| Infinitive | cuidar |
| Translation | to take care of |
| Verb type | Regular -ar verb |
| Gerund | cuidando |
| Past participle | cuidado |
| Auxiliary | haber (all compound tenses) |
| Irregular tenses | regular in every tense |
Full conjugation of cuidar
Present indicative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cuido |
| tú | cuidas |
| él / ella / Ud. | cuida |
| nosotros / nosotras | cuidamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cuidáis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cuidan |
Preterite
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cuidé |
| tú | cuidaste |
| él / ella / Ud. | cuidó |
| nosotros / nosotras | cuidamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cuidasteis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cuidaron |
Imperfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cuidaba |
| tú | cuidabas |
| él / ella / Ud. | cuidaba |
| nosotros / nosotras | cuidábamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cuidabais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cuidaban |
Future
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cuidaré |
| tú | cuidarás |
| él / ella / Ud. | cuidará |
| nosotros / nosotras | cuidaremos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cuidaréis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cuidarán |
Conditional
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cuidaría |
| tú | cuidarías |
| él / ella / Ud. | cuidaría |
| nosotros / nosotras | cuidaríamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cuidaríais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cuidarían |
Present subjunctive
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cuide |
| tú | cuides |
| él / ella / Ud. | cuide |
| nosotros / nosotras | cuidemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cuidéis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cuiden |
Imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms)
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | cuidara |
| tú | cuidaras |
| él / ella / Ud. | cuidara |
| nosotros / nosotras | cuidáramos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cuidarais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cuidaran |
Present perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | he cuidado |
| tú | has cuidado |
| él / ella / Ud. | ha cuidado |
| nosotros / nosotras | hemos cuidado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habéis cuidado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | han cuidado |
Pluperfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | había cuidado |
| tú | habías cuidado |
| él / ella / Ud. | había cuidado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habíamos cuidado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habíais cuidado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habían cuidado |
Future perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | habré cuidado |
| tú | habrás cuidado |
| él / ella / Ud. | habrá cuidado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habremos cuidado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habréis cuidado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habrán cuidado |
Conditional perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | habría cuidado |
| tú | habrías cuidado |
| él / ella / Ud. | habría cuidado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habríamos cuidado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habríais cuidado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habrían cuidado |
Imperative — affirmative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| tú | cuida |
| él / ella / Ud. | cuide |
| nosotros / nosotras | cuidemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cuidad |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cuiden |
Imperative — negative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| tú | cuides |
| él / ella / Ud. | cuide |
| nosotros / nosotras | cuidemos |
| vosotros / vosotras | cuidéis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | cuiden |
Gerund: cuidando · Past participle: cuidado
Cuidar 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: Cada día, yo cuido de mi abuela cada día. — "Every day, I take care of my grandmother every day."
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, yo cuidé de mi abuela cada día. — "Yesterday, I took care of my grandmother every day."
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, yo cuidaba de mi abuela cada día. — "Before, I took care of my grandmother every day."
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, yo cuidaré de mi abuela cada día. — "Tomorrow, I will take care of my grandmother every day."
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: Yo cuidaría de mi abuela cada día si tuviera la oportunidad. — "I would take care of my grandmother every day if I had the chance."
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 ella cuide de mi abuela cada día. — "I hope she will take care of my grandmother every day."
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 ella cuidara de mi abuela cada día, todo cambiaría. — "If she took care of my grandmother every day, everything would change."
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: Yo he cuidado las plantas del balcón varias veces. — "I have taken care of the plants on the balcony several times."
Pluperfect
The pluperfect (había + past participle) is the past of the past: something that had already happened before another past event. Example: Yo había cuidado de mi abuela cada día antes de la reunión. — "I had taken care of my grandmother every day before the meeting."
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: Para mañana, yo habré cuidado de mi abuela cada día. — "By tomorrow, I will have taken care of my grandmother every day."
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: Yo habría cuidado de mi abuela cada día si hubiera tenido tiempo. — "I would have taken care of my grandmother every day if I had had time."
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: ¡cuida de mi abuela cada día! — "Take care of my grandmother every day!"
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 cuides de mi abuela cada día. — "Do not take care of my grandmother every day."
Example sentences with cuidar
Yo cuido de mi abuela cada día. — "I take care of my grandmother every day."
¿Tú cuidas las plantas del balcón? — "Do you take care of the plants on the balcony?"
Ayer, él cuidó de mi abuela cada día. — "Yesterday, he took care of my grandmother every day."
Nosotros cuidamos las plantas del balcón a tiempo. — "We took care of the plants on the balcony on time."
Antes, ellos cuidaban de mi abuela cada día. — "Before, they took care of my grandmother every day."
Mañana, yo cuidaré las plantas del balcón. — "Tomorrow, I will take care of the plants on the balcony."
Nosotros cuidaríamos de mi abuela cada día si pudiéramos. — "We would take care of my grandmother every day if we could."
Yo he cuidado las plantas del balcón varias veces. — "I have taken care of the plants on the balcony several times."
Espero que ella cuide de mi abuela cada día. — "I hope she will take care of my grandmother every day."
Ahora mismo, yo estoy cuidando las plantas del balcón. — "Right now, I am taking care of the plants on the balcony."
Common mistakes with cuidar
1. Dropping the accent on the preterite yo form
The preterite yo form is cuidé — 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 cuidar with proteger (to protect)
cuidar means "to take care of", while proteger means "to protect". They overlap in English but they are not interchangeable in Spanish: use cuidar when you mean taking care of a person, an animal or a thing, and proteger for its own meaning. Check the conjugation of proteger before choosing.
3. Mixing up the preterite and the imperfect
Ayer yo cuidé de mi abuela cada día (preterite: one finished event yesterday) is not the same as antes yo cuidaba de mi abuela cada día (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. Using estar instead of haber in the perfect tenses
The present perfect is he cuidado (haber + participle), never estoy cuidado. Haber is the only auxiliary for compound tenses in Spanish.
5. Dropping the preposition before the complement
cuidar takes de here: yo cuido de mi abuela cada día. Dropping the preposition (yo cuido mi abuela cada día) sounds wrong to a native speaker, so learn the verb together with its preposition.
Quiz: cuidar
1. Yo ___ de mi abuela cada día.
a. cuida b. cuido c. cuidan
2. Ella ___ de mi abuela cada día.
a. cuido b. cuida c. cuidan
3. Ayer, yo ___ de mi abuela cada día.
a. cuido b. cuidé c. cuida
4. Ellos ___ de mi abuela cada día ayer.
a. cuido b. cuidaron c. cuida
5. Antes, yo ___ de mi abuela cada día.
a. cuido b. cuidaba c. cuida
6. Mañana, yo ___ de mi abuela cada día.
a. cuido b. cuidaré c. cuida
7. Yo ___ de mi abuela cada día si pudiera.
a. cuido b. cuidaría c. cuida
8. Espero que ella ___ de mi abuela cada día.
a. cuido b. cuide c. cuida
9. Ahora mismo, yo estoy ___ las plantas del balcón.
a. cuidado b. cuidando c. cuido
10. Yo he ___ las plantas del balcón varias veces.
a. cuidando b. cuidado c. cuido
Answer key
cuido — present tense, yo form.
cuida — present tense, él/ella form.
cuidé — preterite, yo form — a finished action yesterday.
cuidaron — preterite, ellos/ellas form.
cuidaba — imperfect, yo form — a past habit.
cuidaré — future, yo form.
cuidaría — conditional, yo form — a hypothetical.
cuide — present subjunctive after 'espero que'.
cuidando — gerund — the progressive is estar + gerund.
cuidado — past participle — the present perfect is haber + participle.
Frequently asked questions about cuidar
What does cuidar mean in English?
Cuidar means "to take care of". It is used for taking care of a person, an animal or a thing. A simple example is yo cuido de mi abuela cada día — "I take care of my grandmother every day."
Is cuidar regular or irregular?
Cuidar 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 cuido, the preterite yo form cuidé and the past participle cuidado — learn those three first, then fill in the rest from the tables above.
What is the gerund and the past participle of cuidar?
The gerund is cuidando (used for the progressive: estoy cuidando) and the past participle is cuidado (used with haber in all perfect tenses: he cuidado). Both forms are used constantly, so they are worth memorising on their own.
How do I say "I take care of" in the past?
It depends on the meaning. For one finished action use the preterite: ayer yo cuidé de mi abuela cada día — "yesterday I took care of my grandmother every day". For a past habit or background use the imperfect: antes yo cuidaba de mi abuela cada día — "before, I took care of my grandmother every day". The mistake most learners make is using one for the other.
Does cuidar take the subjunctive?
Not usually. Cuidar on its own takes the indicative — yo cuido de mi abuela cada día. You will meet the subjunctive with cuidar only inside a larger construction that itself triggers it, such as no creo que or es importante que, and then the subjunctive form is cuide.