And a third large group of verbs change the -e- in their stem to a simple -i- in the conjugation in the present tense (only in certain persons): ‘competir’ (to compete) becomes compito | compites | compite | compiten BUT competimos | competís. Unfortunately, not all verbs with an -e- in their stem act like this, as we saw with verbs that have an -e- in their stem, but it doesn’t change, or it changes into -ie-. You’ll have to memorize the verbs with this type of stem change, some common ones are: pedir, medir, conseguir, elegir, reír, and repetir.