esperar
Esperar covers both 'to wait' and 'to hope' — two very different things in English, handled by one verb in Spanish.
esperar (wait)
Waiting for something or someone — physical, temporal.
Espera aquí.
Wait here.
Direct command. Simple waiting.
Llevaba dos horas esperando.
He'd been waiting for two hours.
Duration of waiting — llevar + gerund of esperar. Very natural combination.
Espera a que llegue.
Wait for him to arrive.
Esperar a que + subjunctive — waiting for an event to happen.
esperar (hope)
Hoping for outcomes — triggers subjunctive when there's a second subject.
Espero que todo salga bien.
I hope everything goes well.
Hope + subjunctive — the classic trigger. Espero que = I hope that + subjunctive, every time.
Esperemos lo mejor.
Let's hope for the best.
First person plural — let's hope. Subjunctive of esperar used as a mild collective wish.
Era de esperar.
It was to be expected.
Fixed phrase — entirely predictable. 'Era de esperar que pasara esto' = it was only to be expected.
Tricky bit
Context usually separates waiting from hoping — you wait for a person or event, you hope for an outcome. But 'espero el resultado' could mean both (I'm waiting for the result / I'm hoping for the result). Spanish doesn't always force you to choose, which is poetic but occasionally ambiguous.