Spanish Language Basics

Partial credit goes to my Spanish instructor and class textbook for most that I now know, and Google Translator for spelling purposes.​

1 | The Spanish Alphabet

The Spanish alphabet is much like ours with a few exceptions including Ll, Rr, and Ch. The major difference is, they don't recite the ABC's like we do. Instead of "Ay, Bee, See, Dee" they say "Ah, Beh, Seh, and Deh". As a side note, when reciting the Spanish alphabet, "Ch" isn't recited.

Letter - English pronounciation
A - Ah
B - Beh
C - Seh
Ch - Cheh
D - Deh
E - Eh
F - Ef-eh
G - Heh
H - Ah-che
I - Ee
J - Ho-ta
K - Cuh
L - Eh-leh
LL - Eh-jya
M - Eh-meh
N - Eh-neh
Ñ - Eh-nyah
O - Oh
P - Peh
Q - Coo
R - Eh-reh
RR - Erre
S - Eh-seh
T - Teh
U - Oo
V - Veh
W - Dobleh Veh
X - Eh-kees
Y - Ee gree-eh-guh
Z - Seh-ta​

2 | Special Pronounciations

Like I said before, Spanish letters and sounds vary from English. It's difficult to explain without saying it aloud to you directly, but here are a few examples of different pronounciations.

G - Gi, and Ge are pronounced as "H" (Inteligente: in-tel-ee-hen-tay). Ga, Go, and Gu, pronounce the "G" (Yogur: yo-ger)
H - SILENT! Never say "H" (unless it's with something else like Ch or it's the sound made by another letter; J for example).
J - Pronounced as "H" but use the back of your throat to stress the syllable (Reloj: reh-lo-H)
LL - Pronounced jya with less stress on the "J" than in English
Ñ - Pronounced en-ya (Piñata: pin-nyah-tah)
Q - NEVER PRONOUNCE AS THE ENGLISH "Q". (Qué: kay, NOT KWAY)
RR - Pronounced by saying "R" and rolling your tongue. (Correr: coh-rr-er)
X - Not often used, I don't know the actual pronounciation D:
Y - Pronounced EE, not "why"
Z - Pronounced as a short "S" (Lápiz: la-pees)

I'd just like to spend a bit of time on the pronounciation of "R". Para, meaning "for", is pronounced pah-dah (the "D" is soft, almost an "R" sound). It annoys me when people pronounce it pear-ah. And when "R" is the first letter of any word, for example; regular, you have to roll your "R" like it's spelled Rregular with the "Rr" letter at the front. Sometimes it's hard to do it, like when saying reloj and that's the time when you don't roll the "R".​

3 | Verb Conjugations

In English, all of our verbs are already conjugated. We walk, she walks, he walks, they walk, I walk. But in Spanish, you must conjugate to convey who the subject of the sentence is. Yo corro, tú corres, ella corre, nosotros corremos, ellos corren. Before they are conjugated, they are called infinitives. Infinitives, like correr, translate directly "to [VERB]" (to run, to jump, to play, etc.) and it wouldn't make sense for us to say "I to run" would it? Here are all the conjugations for -ar, -er, and -ir verbs.

Conjugation forms:

Base word
Yo (Me)
Tú (you)
Él/Ella/Usted (He/She and Formal-He/she)
Nosotros (we)
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes (They masc/fem and you guys)

Conjugated verbs:

-ar verbs (Bailar)
Bailo
Bailas
Baila
Bailamos
Bailan

-er verbs (Comer)
Como
Comes
Come
Comemos
Comen

-ir verbs (Compartir)
Comparto
Compartes
Comparte
Compartimos
Comparten

There is a sixth conjugation in present tense (there are about 16 conjugations in all, if you look at past tense, past perfect, future tense, present perfect, etc.) and it's conjugated for the vosotros form, which is an uncommon, Spain-only fancy way of saying "we". The endings include -áis, -éis, and -ís. For example:

Bailáis
Coméis
Compartís

About 90% of Spanish verbs are called "regular verbs", meaning they follow the model I've provided above. Such words include compartir, bailar, comer, beber, nadar, equiar, estudiar, trabajar, etc. But what about the other 10%, you may ask. Well, as you may have guessed, they are called "irregular verbs". These kinds of verbs follow some of the model, but have distinct differences for a couple (or in some cases, even just one) conjugations.

Irregular Conjugation:

Dormir
Duermo
Duermes
Duerme
Dormimos
Duermen

Podir
Puedo
Puedes
Puede
Podimos
Pueden

Ir
Voy
Vas
Va
Vamos
Van
(This is a particularly odd verb as none of the conjugations resemble the infinitive...)

Estar
Estoy
Estás
Está
Estamos
Están
(Notice all but the nosotros form contains an accented "A". Also note that Esta and Está are two completely different things, so accents are very important.)​

4 | Definite and Indefinite Articles

Feminine and Masculine forms are a big thing in foreign languages and Spanish is no exception. Everything has something called a definite article, and these areticles are el and la. El is masculine and la in feminine. 90% of Spanish nouns follow the rule that anything ending in -o has the masculine D.A. el and anything ending in -a has the feminine D.A. la. The exceptions are words that end in consinents such as el lápiz, or just plain don't follow the rule at all, such as el sacapunta. Here are a few examples of D.A.s

La silla
El reloj
La mesa
La computadora
El pan
El teclado
La puerta
El ratón

Indefinite articles are un, being masculine; and una, being feminine. Saying una silla is the same as saying "a seat" instead of la silla, meaning "the seat". Here are the same words I put above with their indefinite articles. (Remember, el=un and la=una ALWAYS.)

Una silla
Un reloj
Una mesa
Una computadora
Un pan
Un teclado
Una puerta
Un ratón​

5 | Accents and Word Pronounciation

Accents are very important when you are attempting to pronounce Spanish words. The function of an accent is not to alter the vowel, however, it is a direction to stress that vowel's syllable. For example, lápiz. When saying this word, you want to say LA and trail off saying piz (remember "I" is pronounced "EE"!). Another example is matemáticas. Say mate and stress MA and train off with ticas. ma-ti-MA-ticas. So what if you have two vowels together like la puerta? Easy enough, you must pronounce both vowels! pu-air-ta (remember "U" is pronounced "Oo"!) is a simple way to pronounce it. Spanish accents are as follows: á é í ó and ú. Anyway, like I said before, it's hard to tell you rather than show you but maybe this will help. Think of the size of the letters as how much you stress the syllables.

Lápis --- puerta​

Now you can see how much of a difference there is between an accented word and a nonaccented word.




6 | Syntax

Syntax is another fickle matter. In English, let's say you're describing your house to a friend who is trying to find it. He's on the correct block but you don't know your number. What you DO know is that you are the only house on the block that is painted blue so you tell your friend, "Keep going until you see the blue house!" But what if you had a Spanish friend? You notice that the adjective "blue" comes before the noun, "house". In Spanish, it's backwards. They would say casa de azul literally translating to house of blue, or just casa azul. Same goes for if you were describing what you had for lunch. You'd probably say yo como la sandwich de jamón y queso para almuerzo. which literally translates to "I eat a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch." Notice jamón y queso (ham and cheese) is after sandwish. Yeah.​

7 | Plural Forms

To make nouns plural, all you have to do is add an "S" as the end if it ends in a vowel and an "es" if it ends in a consenent. The last thing you aboslutely HAVE to do is make the definite or indefinite articles plural. The definite articles (D.A.) turn to Los for masc. and Las for fem. and the indefinite articles (I.A.) turn into unos for masc. and unas for fem. (NOTICE THE NOUN'S ENDINGS ARE PLURAL ON THE WORDS BELOW, AS WELL AS THEIR D.A./I.A.)

D.A/I.A. noun

Las/unas sillas
Los/unos relojes
Las/unas mesas
Las/unas computadoras
Los/unos panes
Los/unos teclados
Las/unas puertas
Los/unos ratón

As a side note, las sillas literally translates as "the seats" and unas sillas translates to "some seats". This is important to know when you're structuring a sentence and you need to know whether you need a definite or indefinite article. There are official rules to whether you use definite or indefinite, but I can't remember then well enough to recite them word for word so I won't just in case I'm wrong​

8 | Numbers

The numbers are pretty simple, the only thing you really have to know is all the ones place digits, and then the endings for tens, hundreds, and thousands, any anything after that. The only ones that are really different are 11-15. I will highlight alternate spellings in numbers in red and place value words in yellow.

Uno dos tres cuatro cinco seis siete ocho neuve diez once doce trece catorse quince diesiseis diesisiete diesiocho diesinueve viente vienteuno vientedos ... trece trece y uno ... cuarenta ... cincuenta ... sesenta ... setenta ... ochenta ... noventa ... cien ... docientos ... trecientos ... cuatrocientos ... cincocientos ... seicientos ... setecientos ... ochocientos ... novecientos ... mil ... dos mil and so on until you hit nueve mill.

When you are doing a number over a hundred, this is how it should be structured: siecientos, trece y cuatro You must remember that there is NO "and" (y in Spanish) between the hundreds and the tens place, just like in English. However, there IS an y between the tens and the ones, unlike English. To give it a thousands place, just put mill in front of it like this: Cuatro mil, dosientos y quince.​

9 | Cognates

Cognates are Spanish words, sometimes called "Spenglish" (although, this isn't techincally the correct term for it), that sound and are spelled similar to English words. A Spenglish word is when an English mind replaces a word they don't know how to translate with another Spanish word that sounds similar to the English word they are trying to translate. For example, if they are trying to talk about a house's carpet and they don't know the word for "carpet", something interesting happens. The mind subconciously substitutes that unknown word with another Spanish word that sounds similar. In this particular example, the Spenglish work you may come up with is carpeta, which is actually "poster" in English. Of course, this isnt' exactly cognates. A cognate is a Spanish words that sounds similar to it's ACTUAL translation. For example; nación translates to the English word "Nation". If you pronounce it correctly (nay-see-awn) it sounds somewhat similar to "nation". Another example is la computadora. Exactly the same other than the -adora at the end. Endings such as -dora or -ción are actually able to translate to English endings such as "tion/sion". Here is a short list of some Spanish cognate words:

English - Spanish
attractive - atractvio
author-autor
native - nativo
fabulous - fabuloso
direct - directo
salary - salario
salad - ensalada

One thing you DO have to be careful about, however, is the pronounciation of the cognates. If you make them too similar to their English translations, it won't be correct pronounciation. For example, "salad" and ensalada, no doubt half of the users who actually read this will pronounce the spanish word en-salad-a. WRONG! It's actually pronounced en-saw-law-da. They may be similar to their translations, but don't forget your Spanish accent and letter pronounciations.​

10 | Family Tree

Here is your family tree in Spanish! I will also include other relationships you may have outside your family. This picture has been made by me with translation help from Google Translation and my Spanish textbook. You may use/print/repost this picture however you'd like, but if it's for online use, credit would be nice.



Notice the definite articles el and la as well as their endings determine whether you're talking about a sister, brother, grandma, or grandpa. This is VERY important.​

11 | Verb Combinations

It's common while speaking Spanish to use a combination of verbs to convey your meaning. A sentence using verb combination may resemble something like the following model.

Necesito ir a la escuela porque es bueno para mi futuro.

In the magenta color is our first verb, necesitar, and in the royal blue color is our second verb, ir. Notice that the first verb is conjugated for the yo form, as it ends in "-o". Now take a look at our second verb. It is NOT conjugated because that's just how it goes.​

12 | Demonstrative

Much like in English, Spanish has their own words to indicate to which object of the sentence you're referring to. They differ with how far away the object of your sentence is from yourself. Much like how you'd say "this" or "these" for perhaps what you're wearing or what you're holding; "that" or "those" for maybe a piece of clothing on a rack a ways away from yourself; and "that/those over there" for something much farther away, such as a building or a mountain. The words are as follows in order from closest to farthest away: Esto, esta, estos, estas (note that there is no accent above the "A", so it is not a conjugation of estar);ese, esa, esos, esas; aquel, aquella, aquellos, aquellas (now note that aquel deviates from the -o -a pattern). One more rule to remember is that demonstrative take the place of el, la, los, and las, An example of how you might use these words in a sentence are as follows:

Estos pantelones son muy flojas. Creo que esa falda es mi nombre, pero me gusta aquel vestido más. Which translates to: "These pants are very loose! I think that skirt is my size, but I like that dress over there more."​

13 | Preterite Conjugation

Just like before, when speaking Spanish you cannot simply say "I ran, he ran, they ran". You must follow a whole new set of rules that are almost entirely different from how you would conjugate present tense verbs like "I run". The endings for regular verbs are as follows:

-ar
Hablé
Habláste
Habló
Hablamos
Hablaron

-er and -ir
Comé
Comíste
Comó
Comemos (-er)
Decimos (-ir)
Comieron

MAKE SURE that, when writing or typing or even speaking that you pay extra attention to the endings, particularly their accent marks. When speaking, make sure you stress the accented syllable for maximum comprehension!

Now for the rules. Oh rules, lovely rules. First thing to memorize are the commonly used irregular verbs such as ir, ser, dar, estar and hacer

Ir
Fui
Fuiste
Fue
Fuimos
Fueron

Ser
Fui
Fuiste
Fue
Fuimos
Fueron

NO THIS IS NOT A MISTAKE. Ir and Ser are in fact similarly conjugated. Only context may tell which verb you're intending to use.

Hacer
Hice
Hiciste
Hizo
Hicimos
Hicieron

Estar
Estuve
Estuves
Estuvo
Estuvamos
Estuvan

Dar
Di
Diste
Dio
Dimos
Dieron

The last rule I'll introduce is ending changes to verbs ending in "gar", "car" or "zar". Pay attention to how the infinitives are conjugated in the first person, and how the endings are altered to make sense in the Spanish language.

Jugar (also note how, despite the present tense conjugation rules, the stem doesn't change to "jue-", but remains "ju-")
Jugué
Jugiste
Jugó
Jugamos
Jugaron

Buscar
Busqué
Buscaste
Buscó
Buscamos
Buscaron

Almorzar
Almorcé
Almorzaste
Almorzó
Almorzamos
Almorzaron​

14 | Present Progressive Conjugation

As we move further in depth with a few of Spanish's 16 conjugation tenses, we must learn more and more rules to correctly conjugate for each use of the verb. This next tense is called present progressive, and is the Spanish equivalent of the English "-ing" ending. "I am running, you are running, we are running" etc. The first rule you must know to make this tense work is the use of estar is imperative. The second thing to keep in mind is, in contrast to all the other conjugations we've covered, the verb to be regularly conjugated is the verb estar, and the action verb such as correr or comprar receive a completely unique ending to the present progressive tense. The endings are -ando for -ar and -endo and -iendo for -er and -ir verbs. Here are a few examples:

-ar
Estoy comprando
Estás comprando
Está comprando
Estamos comprando
Están comprando

-er
Estoy correndo
Estás correndo
Está correndo
Estamos correndo
Están correndo

-ir
Estoy deciendo
Estás deciendo
Está deciendo
Estamos deciendo
Están deciendo​

15 | Past Imperfect

When using preterite, you'll find that almost every time you use it, there is no implication as to the presence of more information. You say "I ran" and that's final. If you wanted to keep a conversation going or if you want to convey that there's more to the story than what you've just said, generally you use what's called past imperfect. In English, it would sound like one of these two example sentences: "I was running..." or "I use to play with toys..." When you say that you were running, it's second nature for anyone who's listening to wonder "where to? why?" and therefore you're almost obligated to continue with your thought or message! Jugaba... ¿con qué?... Jugaba con mis juguetes, por supuesto. This is just an example of what past imperfect can accomplish! It's hard to just say "I use to play...", but it makes the story much more interesting to say "I use to play with my toys" rather than "I played." As for the conjugation:

-ar
Jugaba
Jugabas
Jugaba
Jugabamos
Jugaban

-er and -ir
Corría
Corrías
Corría
Corríamos
Corrían

Irregular:
Ir
Iba
Ibas
Iba
Ibamos
Iban

Ser
Era
Eras
Era
Eramos
Eran

Ver
Veía
Veías
Veía
Veíamos
Veían​

16 | Fun Facts

•Here's the USA Pledge of Allegance!

Yo prometo lealtad a la bandera de los Estados Unidos de America, y a la republica, que representa. Una nacion, bajo Dios, indivisible, con libritad y justicia para todos.


•Although amigo translates literally to "friend", Spanish speaking countries do not use it in the same context as we do. Here in America, or in other English speaking countries, friend means just a friend and usually one person has 10-20 friends, (whether they're good or bad friends). In places such as Spain or Mexico, however, an amigo is the equivalent of our best friends. Everyone else they know, all their regular friends care called conocidos. If you were in Mexico, the one or two friends you can tell anything and everything to and they'd understand and still accept you for it, they would be your Spanish amigos. The friends you have that go with you to the movies, go work out with you, talk to you online or at school, they would be conocidos. If you're wondering why: most Spanish speaking countries concentrate more on family and education and less on their social lifes, traditionally. This is obviously different with some families and almost all Spanish-Americans who are exposed to the American lifestyle.​

More to come later!

 

10/10

Wonderful guide. I'm completely speechless. Well organized, great use of colors, font, format, and structure. I love the image you used.

Your guide flows, it's easy to follow, I don't find myself being lectured or confused by your guide. I honestly have nothing negative to say about this guide.

Excellence. Keep up the good work.

 

Thank you, I'll be making more in the future, I only have two right now and the other isn't so great, but I'll keep working;]

 

Nice guide man, cuantos anos hace que hablas espanol? o lo has hablado desde la nineza?

 

Great guide, I'm really surprised that you haven't got anymore reviews.

You've made the text interesting by changing colors, and the font doesn't look horrid, like in some other guides like these. You've gone into detail on how to pronounceait, and you've even gone the extra effort to make "fun facts."

The only way you can really better this guide is to make a video guide on how to do it, which is unnecessary.

Thank-you for making the time to write this.

 

Very good overview of the basics. Easy to follow, well written.

9/10

 

Thank you, funniest thing, I was thinking about recording my face so that people can see how you arrange your mouth and so forth to efficiently enunciate the syllables, I just might have to do that! I will be updating more soon, we're getting into more conjugations, and there's a lot that I haven't put in since my last update. Thanks for the comments you guys! I wish I had more subjects that I can write passionately about, it would be awesome to get enough guides to apply for the UE

 

Extremely well written guide! I probably learned a few pointers from this that I've learned in the past but have forgotten. I'd give you some tips to improve, but to be hones there isn't much since this guide is so flawless.

 

very good guide, i myself am a native spanish speaker, just dont rely on google translate people because it fails you a lot . It literally trys to translate english to spanish with out grammar.

 

Thanks a lot for the feedback.

Niguh, if you find anything that needs correcting, I'd appreciate it. I know I must have messed something up