Conjugating verbs in the Estonian present tense is highly systematic and easy to learn.

You only need to know the base form of the verb and six simple endings.

Unlike English, Estonian verbs clearly show exactly who is doing the action through these specific letter endings.

I’ll show you exactly how to find the verb stem and apply the correct present tense endings today.

Finding the verb stem

Estonian verbs have two main infinitive forms that you’ll see in the dictionary.

These are known as the ma-infinitive and the da-infinitive.

To form the present tense, you always use the ma-infinitive.

You simply remove the “-ma” from the end of the word.

What’s left over is called the present verb stem.

For example, the Estonian verb for “to live” is elama.

When you remove the “-ma” ending, you’re left with the present stem ela-.

This stem is the foundation for all of your present tense conjugations.

Present tense personal endings

Once you have your verb stem, you attach a specific ending based on the pronoun.

Estonian has six personal pronouns.

Each pronoun has a corresponding one-to-three letter ending that never changes.

You must attach these exact endings to the end of your verb stem.

Because the ending clearly tells us who is speaking, Estonians often drop the pronoun entirely in casual conversation.

Conjugation examples

Let’s look at how this works in action with the verb elama (to live).

Remember that our present stem for this verb is ela-.

Here are a few dialogue examples using these present tense verbs.

We can apply this exact same rule to the verb armastama (to love).

The stem is armasta-, so we just add our endings.

Forming the negative present tense

Making a verb negative in the Estonian present tense is incredibly simple.

You don’t need to memorize any personal endings for the negative form.

You just use the negative word ei followed directly by the bare verb stem.

This means the verb looks exactly the same for every single pronoun.

Here are some examples of the negative present tense in a sentence.

Regional dialect differences

Standard Estonian is spoken throughout the country and is what you’ll learn in all modern courses.

However, in Southern Estonian dialects like Võro, the present tense endings can sound quite different.

For example, the third-person singular often has no ending at all in the Võro dialect.

You might hear older generations in the southeast use these historical verb forms.

You only need to focus on standard Estonian endings to be perfectly understood everywhere.