You line up a sentence about a missed shot, a phone that just died, or a friend who did not come through, and English offers you one word: fail. Spanish will not take that shortcut. The fallar conjugation itself is the easy part. Fallar is a regular -ar verb, and the hard part is knowing which “fail” you actually mean.
Quick answer: Fallar conjugates like hablar: fallo, fallé, falló, fallado, fallando. Use it to miss a shot, to say a thing broke down, or to say someone let you down (fallarle a alguien). When a faculty gives out, say me falla la memoria. When a plan or a project collapses, use fracasar. When the grade is a fail, use suspender in Spain and reprobar in much of Latin America. The full chart is on the fallar conjugation page. The double l never changes.
What fallar means in real Spanish
Fallar covers five jobs that English splits across “miss,” “break down,” “let someone down,” “a faculty gives out,” and, in a courtroom, “rule.” A failed exam is a different verb. The collapse of a whole project is usually fracasar, while a single miss inside that project is still fallar.
Miss a shot or a target
This sense takes a direct object. The person who misses is the subject.
El delantero falló el tiro. (The striker missed the shot.)
Ayer fallé el tiro decisivo. (Yesterday I missed the decisive shot.)
In football commentary you will also hear falló el penalti in Spain and falló el penal in much of Latin America. Same verb, same form, two nouns for the penalty kick.
Something stops working
Here fallar is intransitive. The machine, the brake, the power, or the connection is the subject.
El motor falló. (The engine failed.)
Si falla el teléfono, escríbeme. (If the phone fails, write to me.)
El micrófono está fallando. (The microphone is cutting out.)
Está fallando is the gerund fallando with estar. Use the plain present, falla, for a habit or a known weakness, and está fallando for a problem happening right now.
Let someone down
Fallarle a alguien means you did not come through for that person. The person who fails is the subject. The person who is let down is an indirect object, so the clitic stays in the sentence.
Me fallaste. (You let me down.)
Le fallé a mi hermana. (I let my sister down.)
No me falles mañana. (Don’t let me down tomorrow.)
There is a set phrase you will hear constantly: no falla, meaning it never fails, it is a sure thing.
Ese truco no falla. (That trick never fails.)
A faculty gives out
Me falla la memoria is a different construction from me fallaste, and it is easy to mix them up because both use me. Here the thing that fails is the subject, the same way gustar works. The person is only the indirect object.
Me falla la memoria. (My memory fails me.)
Me fallan las palabras. (Words fail me.)
La memoria is singular, so the verb is falla. Las palabras is plural, so the verb is fallan. You do not say me fallo la memoria. Fallar is not reflexive, and you are not the subject of that sentence.
A judge rules
In legal Spanish, fallar means to hand down a decision. A favor de or en contra de makes that meaning unmistakable.
El juez falló a favor del demandante. (The judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff.)
The noun el fallo is the ruling, and in ordinary speech it is a fault, a flaw, or a mistake. Fue un fallo mío means “that was my fault” or “that was my mistake.” Yo fallo, with no article, is the verb: “I miss” or “I fail to come through.” Bare yo fallo does not mean “I rule.” You meet that meaning in el juez falló a favor de, or in the noun el fallo.
If what you mean is “I was mistaken,” that is equivocarse, not fallar. Me equivoqué de camino means “I took the wrong road.” A microphone cannot equivocarse. It falla.
Action step: Say three sentences out loud before you look at a table. One missed shot (fallé el tiro), one breakdown (el teléfono falló), and one letdown (te fallé). If you cannot feel which noun is doing the failing, the endings will not save you.
Fallar conjugation in the present
Drop -ar and add the present endings: -o, -as, -a, -amos, -áis, -an. The stem is fall-, with both l’s, in every person. Nothing in that stem changes. There is no spelling change of the kind you see with -car, -gar, or -zar verbs.
These are the same endings as hablar. Recognizing hablas still does not mean fallas will come out when you mean a missed shot, so we drill the endings on fallar itself. Active production is the point: you type the form, you do not pick it off a list.
| Pronoun | Present | English |
|---|---|---|
| yo | fallo | I fail / I miss |
| tú | fallas | you fail / you miss |
| él/ella/usted | falla | he/she/you formal fails / misses |
| nosotros | fallamos | we fail / we miss |
| vosotros | falláis | you all fail / miss (Spain) |
| ellos/ustedes | fallan | they / you all fail / miss |
Yo fallo el tiro cuando me pongo nervioso. (I miss the shot when I get nervous.)
Fallamos has no accent. You will meet the same spelling again in the preterite. Context tells them apart: siempre fallamos is present, and ayer fallamos is preterite. Hoy is not a present marker. In much of Latin America, hoy fallamos el tiro is preterite when the miss is already over.
Usted uses falla, the same form as él and ella. Ustedes uses fallan. Vosotros is the Spain plural, and it is the present form with an accent: falláis.
In Rioplatense voseo the present is fallás, with the stress on the last syllable, and the affirmative command is fallá. The tables here follow tú and vosotros, which is what the fallar conjugation chart uses.
Most speakers pronounce ll like the y in “yes,” and in the River Plate it is closer to sh. You still write two l’s. Fallo is not spelled with a y.
Fallo with no accent is also easy to confuse with the noun el fallo. Yo fallo is “I miss.” El fallo is “the fault,” “the mistake,” or “the ruling.”
Action step: Read the six present forms out loud, then put el tiro after fallo, fallas, and falla. If falláis is the one you skip, say it twice. Spain will use it, and the accent is the only thing that separates it from a careless spelling.
Fallar in the preterite
The preterite is for a miss, a breakdown, or a letdown that is finished. The endings are the regular -ar set: -é, -aste, -ó, -amos, -asteis, -aron. Only two of them take an accent: fallé and falló.
| Pronoun | Preterite | English |
|---|---|---|
| yo | fallé | I failed / I missed |
| tú | fallaste | you failed / you missed |
| él/ella/usted | falló | he/she/you formal failed / missed |
| nosotros | fallamos | we failed / we missed |
| vosotros | fallasteis | you all failed / missed (Spain) |
| ellos/ustedes | fallaron | they / you all failed / missed |
Fallaste en el último segundo. (You missed at the last second.)
El ascensor falló a las tres. (The elevator broke down at three.)
Ayer nos fallasteis. (Yesterday you let us down. Spain, plural.)
Fallaron tres tiros seguidos. (They missed three shots in a row.)
Ayer fallamos en avisar a tiempo. (Yesterday we failed to give warning in time.)
Fallar en plus an infinitive is normal when the failure is that something did not get done. Ayer puts fallamos in the preterite. A tiempo only means the warning had to arrive in time. It does not mark past tense, and without ayer the sentence can be read as present. The same six letters, fallamos, are present in siempre fallamos en avisar.
Three shapes, three jobs. Fallo has no accent: yo, present, still in play. Fallé puts the accent on the e: yo, and it is over. Falló puts the accent on the o: él, ella, or usted, also over. Hear the stress, and you know where the accent goes. The ll never drops out of any of them.
The mix-up between fallé and falló is small on the page and expensive mid-sentence. Our SM-2 schedule brings that pair back on the day you are most likely to have swapped the accent.
Action step: Cover the Spanish column and write the six preterite forms from the pronouns. Then circle only fallé and falló. Those are the two accents. Fallaste, fallamos, fallasteis, and fallaron do not take one.
Me falla and le fallé
These two sentences both involve fallar and an indirect-object pronoun. They do not mean the same thing, because the subject is different.
Me falla la memoria. The subject is la memoria. The verb agrees with it. You are only the person affected.
Le fallé a mi hermana. The subject is yo. Fallé agrees with you. Le is the person you let down.
The thing is the subject
Ask what is actually failing. If it is a memory, a pair of legs, the brakes, the lights, or a phone, that noun is the subject. Put it after the verb, and put the person in front as me, te, le, nos, os, les.
Me falla la memoria con los nombres. (My memory fails me with names.)
Le fallan los frenos. (His/her brakes are failing.)
Nos falló la luz. (The power went out on us.)
Me falla el teléfono. (My phone is acting up.)
Nos falló is preterite because the outage happened and finished. Me falla is present because the phone is acting up now, or it does this as a habit. Plural subject, plural verb: los frenos takes fallan, not falla.
The person is the subject
Fallarle a alguien keeps you, or whoever failed to show up, as the subject. Match the verb to that person, then add the indirect object for the person who was counting on them.
Te fallé. (I let you down.)
Siempre nos fallan. (They always let us down.)
No le falles a tu equipo. (Don’t let your team down.)
No le falles is the negative tú command, which uses the present subjunctive falles. The affirmative tú command, if you ever need the bare form, is falla, spelled like the él present. The sentence you will actually say is the negative one.
This is the pattern worth typing in full, pronoun included. In VerbPal we treat me falla la memoria and te fallé as two production items, not as one vocabulary card called “fail.” If you only recognize them, you will swap the subject the first time you are tired.
One letter away, faltar is a different verb. Me falta tiempo means “I’m short of time.” Me falla el teléfono means “my phone is acting up.” The set phrase sin falta belongs to falta, and it means “for sure”:
Te llamo mañana sin falta. (I’ll call you tomorrow without fail.)
Sin fallar uses the verb, and it means “without missing.”
Lleva cinco tiros sin fallar. (He/she has gone five shots without missing.)
Do not use sin fallar when you mean “I promise.” That promise is sin falta.
Action step: Write three lines on paper. Line one: me falla plus a singular noun. Line two: me fallan plus a plural noun. Line three: le fallé a plus a person. Read them tomorrow and see whether the verb still agrees with the right subject.
Fallar vs fracasar, and exams
Fracasar is intransitive. A plan, a negotiation, a business, or a person’s attempt ends in failure. You do not give it a direct object, and you do not use it for a machine or a letdown.
A miss, a malfunction, a faculty giving out, or a person who does not come through. Falló el tiro. El motor falló. Me fallaste.
The whole attempt collapses. El proyecto fracasó. Fracasó como entrenador. Not for a penalty, a brake, or "you let me down."
El proyecto fracasó. (The project failed.)
La negociación fracasó. (The negotiation fell through.)
Fracasó en el intento. (He/she failed in the attempt.)
Fracasó como entrenador. (He failed as a coach.)
You can miss a shot and still win the match. That miss is fallar. If the whole campaign is over, the campaign fracasó. For a business or a career attempt, fracasar is the verb to learn. El wifi fracasó is not how you say the wifi dropped. The wifi falló. And me fracasaste is not Spanish for “you let me down.” That sentence is me fallaste.
El intento falló and el intento fracasó can both be said. Fracasó presents the attempt as ending in failure. Falló can be that same outcome, and it is also what you say when one piece of the attempt misfired. When you are choosing under pressure, use fracasar for the collapse of the undertaking and fallar for the miss, the breakdown, or the person.
Suspender and reprobar for a grade
A failed exam is a third verb, and it is not fallar.
Suspendí el examen. (I failed the exam. Spain.)
Reprobé el examen. (I failed the exam. Much of Latin America.)
Aprobé el examen. (I passed the exam.)
The teacher can also be the subject in Spain: me suspendieron en matemáticas means they failed me in math. Suspender also means “to suspend” or “to put on hold,” as in suspending a meeting. With an exam or a school subject, it means the grade is a fail.
For a grade, use suspendí or reprobé. Leave fallé el examen off the list of sentences you practise.
Action step: Translate these three before you check yourself. “She missed the shot.” “The business failed.” “I failed the exam” (pick Spain or Latin America and stick with it). You want falló el tiro, el negocio fracasó, and suspendí or reprobé el examen.
The two sentences that get swapped are me falla la memoria and le fallé. The rule is which noun is the subject. The skill is producing that under pressure. Type the full line, pronoun and ending included, and let spaced repetition bring the pair back when you are about to trade them. That is the drill, not another reread of the chart.
Try VerbPal free →The rest of the fallar conjugation
Present and preterite cover most of what you will say this week. The other tenses use the regular -ar endings on the same fall- stem. The future and the conditional are the infinitive fallar plus the ending, not a shortened stem. Once those two past-and-present forms are automatic, the Journey module walks the remaining tenses in order, including the subjunctive, so fallar is not a verb you only know in fallo and fallé.
Imperfect: a habit or a backdrop
Use the imperfect when the failing was ongoing or repeated, not a single finished event.
| Pronoun | Imperfect | English |
|---|---|---|
| yo | fallaba | I was failing / I used to fail |
| tú | fallabas | you were failing / you used to fail |
| él/ella/usted | fallaba | he/she/you formal was failing / used to fail |
| nosotros | fallábamos | we were failing / we used to fail |
| vosotros | fallabais | you all were failing / used to fail (Spain) |
| ellos/ustedes | fallaban | they / you all were failing / used to fail |
El motor fallaba cada vez que llovía. (The engine would fail every time it rained.)
El motor falló una vez y lo arreglaron. (The engine failed once and they fixed it.)
The first sentence is a repeated backdrop, so fallaba. The second is one completed event, so falló. Fallábamos is the imperfect form with an accent. Preterite fallamos has none.
Future and conditional
Both are built on fallar plus the ending. Fallaré is “I will fail / I will miss.” Fallaría is “I would fail / I would miss.”
| Pronoun | Future | Conditional |
|---|---|---|
| yo | fallaré | fallaría |
| tú | fallarás | fallarías |
| él/ella/usted | fallará | fallaría |
| nosotros | fallaremos | fallaríamos |
| vosotros | fallaréis | fallaríais |
| ellos/ustedes | fallarán | fallarían |
Si practico, fallaré menos tiros. (If I practice, I will miss fewer shots.)
Yo en tu lugar no le fallaría. (If I were you, I wouldn’t let him/her down.)
Present subjunctive, commands, and he fallado
After esperar que, no creer que, and ojalá, use the present subjunctive, not the present indicative. Espero que no falle is the hope. Creo que falla is a plain opinion, so the indicative stays.
| Pronoun | Present subjunctive | English gloss |
|---|---|---|
| yo | falle | (that) I fail |
| tú | falles | (that) you fail |
| él/ella/usted | falle | (that) he/she/you formal fail |
| nosotros | fallemos | (that) we fail |
| vosotros | falléis | (that) you all fail (Spain) |
| ellos/ustedes | fallen | (that) they / you all fail |
Espero que no falle el teléfono. (I hope the phone doesn’t fail.)
No creo que te falle la memoria. (I don’t think your memory will fail you.)
Ojalá no me falles. (I hope you don’t let me down.)
Negative commands use those same subjunctive forms. No me falles (tú), no me falle (usted), no le fallemos (let’s not let him/her down), no me falléis (Spain plural), no me fallen (ustedes). The affirmative vosotros command is fallad. You will rarely order someone to miss. Learn the negative.
For a wish that feels unlikely, or a hypothetical, the imperfect subjunctive is regular too: fallara, fallaras, fallara, falláramos, fallarais, fallaran. The -se set means the same thing: fallase, fallases, fallase, fallásemos, fallaseis, fallasen.
Ojalá no fallara el motor. (If only the engine didn’t fail.)
Si falla el motor, avísame. (If the engine fails, let me know.)
The si sentence uses present falla because you are treating the breakdown as a real possibility. Ojalá no fallara pushes the wish further from that.
The present perfect is haber plus the invariable participle fallado. As a verb, fallado does not change for gender. As an adjective it does: un tiro fallado, una ocasión fallada.
| Pronoun | Present perfect | English |
|---|---|---|
| yo | he fallado | I have failed / I have missed |
| tú | has fallado | you have failed / you have missed |
| él/ella/usted | ha fallado | he/she/you formal has failed / missed |
| nosotros | hemos fallado | we have failed / we have missed |
| vosotros | habéis fallado | you all have failed / missed (Spain) |
| ellos/ustedes | han fallado | they / you all have failed / missed |
He fallado dos tiros. (I have missed two shots.)
Action step: Write one future, one conditional, and one subjunctive, each with a reason you can say in English. A clean set: fallaré menos tiros (later, if you practice), no le fallaría (hypothetical), espero que no falle (a hope). Then check every accent against the tables above.
Drill the forms that get swapped
A chart shows you the answer. Speaking asks you to build it. Practising the verb inside a sentence is what makes falló different from fracasó when you are mid-story. Our games and typed drills do the same job: you produce falló or falle, and a multiple-choice glance does not count.
1. "My memory fails me." Which sentence is right?
2. Preterite, yo: "I missed the shot."
3. "The project collapsed." Fallar or fracasar?
4. "I hope you don't let me down." Which tú form follows ojalá?
Action step: Answer the four prompts out loud before you open them. Then say fallé el tiro, falló el tiro, and me falla la memoria as three separate sentences, so the accent and the subject each have a job.
If you want the wider map of how Spanish verbs are built, the Spanish verb guide is the overview. Then come back and produce fallar from memory, one tense a day, until fallé and falló stop trading places.
Frequently asked questions
Is fallar a regular -ar verb?
Yes. Fallar is a regular -ar verb, in the same pattern as hablar. The present is fallo, fallas, falla, fallamos, falláis, fallan. The preterite is fallé, fallaste, falló, fallamos, fallasteis, fallaron. The participle is fallado and the gerund is fallando. The double l stays in every form.
What is the difference between fallar and fracasar?
Fallar is a miss, a breakdown, or a letdown: falló el tiro, el motor falló, me fallaste. Fracasar means a plan, project, business, or attempt ends in failure: el proyecto fracasó. Me fracasaste is not how you say someone let you down, and el motor fracasó is not how you say a machine broke.
How do you say my memory fails me in Spanish?
Me falla la memoria. La memoria is the subject, so the verb is singular falla, and me is the person affected. If the thing failing is plural, the verb agrees with it: me fallan las palabras means words fail me.
How do you say you failed an exam in Spanish?
In Spain, use suspender: suspendí el examen. In much of Latin America, use reprobar: reprobé el examen. Fallar is not the usual verb for a failed grade. Aprobé el examen means you passed.
What does le fallé mean?
Le fallé means I let him, her, or you (formal) down. You are the subject, which is why the verb is fallé. That is a different sentence from me falló el teléfono, where the phone is the subject and it broke down on me.
Does the double l change when you conjugate fallar?
No. Fallar keeps ll in every form, including fallo, fallé, falló, falle, fallado, and fallando. The vowel stays a as well. You still write two l's even where ll is pronounced like a y.