Question

-ir and -er ending Verbs are very similar in their endings when they are conjugated. How do the differ in their endings when they are conjugated?

Answer 1

They end that way because they are in "infinitivo", infinitive. It is the equivalent of saying "to x"

Eg.

Aprender - to learn

Vivir - to live

Encontrar - to find

The conjugation (-er, -ir or -ar) depends on each word, it is a matter of memorising them, I'm afraid.

Hope this helped :)

Answer 2

When conjugating verbs that end in -er and -ir, there are similarities and rules to follow as long as they are regular verbs.

For example let's conjugate and compare two verbs, "comer" (to eat) and "escribir" (to write) in their simple present form

Yo como Yo escribo

Tú comes Tú escribes

Él come Él escribe

Nosotros comemos Nosotros escribimos

Ustedes comen Ustedes escriben

Ellos comen Ellos escriben

In the examples the bold part represents the terminations following the root of the verb. As you can see, the terminations are the same except for the first person plural, which is where they differ.