And now for everyone's favorite part of learning a language: GRAMMAR. Now I know most people hate learning all the little rules of grammar, but it is something that must be done. It will also really help you speak the language well. You will sound like you know what you are doing. Once you are familiar with the rules, it will become second nature to speak the language properly. This section isn't too bad. I promise.
First off, let's look at the basic structure of a simple Spanish sentence. Just like in the English language, to make a sentence in Spanish, you put together a subject and a verb, along with optional descriptive information. This is no different than saying "I saw the red ball," in English. "Saw" is the verb, "ball" is the subject, and "red" is the descriptive information. Let's look at a simple Spanish sentence:
El carro es blanco. (EHL CAH-rroh ES BLAHN-coh) - The car is white
"El carro" is the subject, "es" is the verb, and "blanco" is the description. Not too bad, right? Here's another one:
La mujer es alta. (LAH MOO-hehr ES AL-tah) - The woman is tall
"La mujer" is the subject, "es" is the verb, and "alta" is the description. It's just like in English. One small difference between English and Spanish when using adjectives (white, tall) is in English the adjective comes before the noun (i.e. white car), in Spanish the order is reversed (i.e. car white). Here is an example:
el carro blanco (EHL CAH-rroh BLAHN-coh) - the car white, or the white car
la grande casa (LAH GRAHN-deh CAH-sah) - the house large, or the large house
Making a negative sentence is also a very easy thing to do. You must simply a "no" in front of the verb. "No" is the Spanish word for "not." Here is an example:
La casa es grande. (LAH CAH-sah EHS GRAHN-deh) - The house is big.
La casa no es grande. (LAH CAH-sah NOH EHS GRAHN-deh) - The house is not big.
Commonly Used Words
A few more words that you will definitely want to know when learning to construct sentences are "this," "that," "those," and "these," along with some others. Here are their Spanish translations:
ese (male) / esa (female) - that
estos (male) / estas (female) - these
este (male) / esta (female) - this
esos (male) / esas (female) - those
o (OH) - or
y (EE) - and
pero (PEH-roh) - but
a (AH) - to
para (PAH-rah) - for
en (EHN) - in, on, at
de (DEH) - of, from
con (KOHN) - with
sin (SEEN) - without
del (DEHL) - of the (contraction)
al (AHL) - to the (contraction)
Making a Question
Forming a question in the Spanish language is very simple. You will have it down in no time. All you have to do to form a question in Spanish is reverse the order of the verb and the subject. Instead of saying"This is the house," you would say "Is this the house," just like in English. Here are some examples:
Esta es la casa. (EH-stah EHS LA CAH-sah) - This is the house.
¿Es ésta la casa? (EHS EH-stah LA CAH-sah) - Is this the house?
Ese es el hombre. (EH-seh EHS EHL OHM-breh) - That is the man.
¿Es ese el hombre? (EHS EH-seh EHL OHM-breh) - Is that the man?
That's all there is to it. Now you know how to make a simple sentence and form a simple question. You're on your way! You will learn many more questions in the Questions section of this site.
Possession Words
Now that you know how to build a sentence in Spanish, you will need to know the words that show possession, such as "my," and "his." Here is a list of what you need to know:
mi (MEE) - my
su (SOO) - your/his/her/their
Nuestra (nooEHS-trah) - our
That is a list of singular possession words, such as saying "my house," where the subject (house) is singular. When you are dealing with a plural subject, you must make the possession words plural also.
mis casas (MEES CAH-sahs) - my houses
sus carros (SOOS CAH-rrohs) - his cars
nuestras camas (nooEHS-trahs CAH-mahs) - our beds
Pronouns
Pronoun use in the Spanish language can be a little confusing at first. Basically, pronouns are very seldomly used when speaking and writing Spanish. The reason for this is that every Spanish verb has the pronoun form built into it, so you don't need a pronoun to know what the verb refers to. For example, the verb trabajar means to work. To say "I work," in Spanish you would simply say "trabajo." The "I" does not need to be there because it is assumed from the verb form. To say "You work," in Spanish you would say "trabajas." The "You" is assumed because that is the form of the verb used. We will get much more in depth on verbs later on, but for now just remember that a pronoun is not normally used before a verb in a Spanish sentence because each verb has a specific form for each pronoun.
Gender
The Spanish language is very gender specific. Every noun in Spanish has a gender, not just people. For example, in Spanish the word "carro" is a male word, whereas in English the word "car" is not gender specific. Since "carro" ends in an "o," it is a male. Spanish words that end in an "o," are almost always male. Spanish words that end in "a," are almost always female. There are very few exceptions to this rule. One exception to remember is the "ma, pa, ta" rule. This rule states that words ending in "ma," "pa," or "ta," are more than likely male, even though they end in "a."
A word's gender conditions every other word in a sentence. A male word requires a male article in front of it, as well as all descriptive words to be male. Let's look at "carro" again. To say "the car," you have to use "El carro," because "el" is the male article for "the." To use an adjective such as to say "the white car," you have to use "El blanco carro," making "blanco" end in the male "o." If we were using a female gendered noun such as "casa," we would have to use female specific words. To say "the white house," you would have to use "La casa blanca." "La" is the female article for "the," and you must give "blanca" the female ending of "a." We will get more into articles in a minute. First here are a couple more examples:
La mujer alta (LAH MOO-hehr AHL-tah) - The tall woman
El niño alto (EHL NEE-nyoh AHL-toh) - The tall boy
Always remember that everything has a gender, and all the other words in a sentence have to coincide with that gender.
Articles
The English use of articles is extremely vague compared to Spanish. In English, "the" and "a/an" can refer to "man," "men," "woman," or "women." This is not the case in the Spanish language. Spanish is much more specific. There are specific articles for each gender, as well as different articles for singular and plural. By this you can tell exactly how many subjects, as well as their gender in one word. This allows you to be much more specific in what you are trying to say. Here is a list of the articles and their uses:
el (EHL) - male singular "the"
los (LOHS) - male plural "the"
la (LAH) - female singular "the"
las (LAHS) - female plural "the"
un (OON) - male singular "a/an"
unos (OO-nohs) - male plural "a/an"
una (OO-nah) - female singular "a/an"
unas (OO-nahs) - female plural "a/an"
Figuring out which article to use is very simple. You can tell which gender a word is by looking at the last letter. If it ends in "o," it is more than likely male. If it ends in "a," it is more than likely female. Remember that if a word ends in "s," it is plural. Here are a few examples:
la cama (LAH CAH-mah) - the bed
las camas (LAHS CAH-mahs) - the beds
el carro (EHL CAH-rroh) - the car
los carros (LOHS CAH-rrohs) - the cars
una niña (OO-nah NEE-nyah) - a girl
unas niñas (OO-nahs NEE-nyahs) - some girls
un hombre (OON OHM-breh) - a man
unos hombres (OO-nohs OHM-brehs) - some men
One small addition to this section deals with when you have mixed company together, as in a group of boys and girls. In this case you always use the male gendered words. So to say a group of children (boys and girls), you would say "unos niños."
Plurals
Making a word plural in the Spanish language is quite simple to do. If a word ends in a vowel, all you have to do is add an "s." "Casa," becomes "casas." "Hombre," becomes "hombres." Simple. If a word ends in a consonant, to make it plural all you have to do is add an "es." "Mujer," becomes "mujeres." "Doctor," becomes "doctores." This is a very easy concept, and it will become second nature to you very quickly. Here are a few more examples:
bigote (bee-GOH-teh) - mustache
bigotes (bee-GOH-tehs) - mustaches
bulevar (boo-leh-VAHR) - boulevard
bulevares (boo-leh-VAHR-ehs) - boulevards
Also, when using plurals the adjective has to become plural too. If you were to say "two white houses," it would be "dos casas blancas." Instead of using the singular form "blanca," you have to make it plural by adding an "s" onto the end of it since you are talking about two white houses. This is a very easy rule, the key is just to remember that you have to do it.
un carro negro (OON KAH-rroh NEH-groh) - a black car
dos carros negros (DOHS KAH-rrohs NEH-grohs) - two black cars
Formal/Informal "YOU"
In Spanish, there are two ways to say the word "you," each having a different meaning. There is a "you" for formal relationships (usted), and there is a "you" for informal relationships (tú), such as friends and lovers. The formal "you" (usted) is used to convey respect, or used with someone you are just meeting. The informal "you" (tú) is used with people you are more familiar with and close to. In the world of emergency personnel, most people you will be dealing with will be on a more formal level, which means you will be using "usted" more frequently than the informal "tú." Here are a few examples:
¿Como se llama usted? (KOH-moh SEH YAH-mah OO-stehd) - [Formal] What is your name?
¿Vas tú al cine? (VAHS TOO AHL SEE-neh) - [Informal] Do you go to the movies?
Spanish speaking people in Spain use the word "vosotros" to address more than one person. This word is not used by Spanish speaking America. Spanish speaking America uses the word "ustedes" to address more than one person. "Ustedes" also can mean "they," so that is something to remember. This will become more familiar when we get into conjugating verbs.
There are also abbreviations for usted and ustedes that are sometimes used in written text. "Ud." is used to abbreviate usted, and "Uds." is used to abbreviate ustedes. Just a little extra tidbit I thought I would throw at your brain.
Regular and Irregular Verbs
How can you speak a language without showing action? You can't. That's why it is time to learn how to use verbs. In this section you will learn where verbs go in a sentence, how to conjugate them, and the difference between regular and irregular verbs. After you learn this, you can go to the Verb Section on this site and learn a whole lot more verbs to use.
All Spanish verbs end in one of three letter combinations: -ar, -er, or -ir. Regular and irregular verbs both can have any of the three endings. With Spanish verbs there are three different tenses: past, present, and future. There are also three different persons: I/we, you, and he/she/it. Finding all these different verb forms is called conjugation. Luckily for us, if you find the conjugation for one regular verb, every other regular verb with the same ending is going to have the exact same conjugation. If you can memorize the conjugations for the three verb endings, you will know how to use every regular verb, which leaves only a few irregular verbs to commit to memory.
Irregular verbs do not follow any certain pattern when it comes to conjugation. Therefore, the important irregular verbs must be memorized. Later on you will learn some of the important irregular verbs. This may seem like a pain, but even if you mess up most Spanish speakers will be able to understand what you are trying to say.
The first part of a verb is called its root. For example we will look at the verb manejar (to drive). The root of this verb is "manej-" which will always stay constant throughout the conjugation. You will simply add different endings to this root in order to convey which tense and who you are speaking to. You will see what I mean in the conjugation tables.
Now we will go ahead and conjugate manejar (to drive), which as we can see is a regular verb with an -ar ending.
Present Tense:
yo manejo - I drive
tú manejas - you drive
él/ella/ello/uno maneja - he/she/it drives
nosotros manejamos - we drive
vosotros manejáis - you (plural) drive
ellos/ellas/ustedes manejan - they/you (plural) drive
Past Tense:
yo manejé - I drove
tú manejaste - you drove
él/ella/ello/uno manejó - he/she/it drove
nosotros manejamos - we drove
vosotros manejásteis - you (plural) drove
ellos/ellas/ustedes manejaron - they/you (plural) drove
Future Tense:
yo manejaré - I will drive
tú manejarás - you will drive
él/ella/ello/uno manejará - he/she/it will drive
nosotros manejaremos - we will drive
vosotros manejaréis - you (plural) will drive
ellos/ellas/ustedes manejarán - they/you (plural) will drive
Now we will conjugate comer, which is the verb "to eat." As you can see it is a regular verb that ends in -er. The root of the verb is "com-."
Present Tense:
yo como - I eat
tú comes - you eat
él/ella/ello/uno come - he/she/it eats
nosotros comemos - we eat
vosotros coméis - you (plural) eat
ellos/ellas/ustedes comen - they/you (plural) eat
Past Tense:
yo comí - I ate
tú comiste - you ate
él/ella/ello/uno comió - he/she/it ate
nosotros comimos - we ate
vosotros comisteis - you (plural) ate
ellos/ellas/ustedes comieron - they/you (plural) ate
Future Tense:
yo comeré - I will eat
tú comerás - you will eat
él/ella/ello/uno comerá - he/she/it will eat
nosotros comeremos - we will eat
vosotros comeréis - you (plural) will eat
ellos/ellas/ustedes comerán - they/you (plural) will eat
Now we have one ending left to conjugate: "-ir." For this we will use vivir, which means "to live." The root of the verb is "viv-."
Present Tense:
yo vivo - I live
tú vives - you live
él/ella/ello/uno vive - he/she/it lives
nosotros vivimos - we live
vosotros vivis - you (plural) live
ellos/ellas/ustedes viven - they/you (plural) live
Past Tense:
yo viví - I lived
tú viviste - you lived
él/ella/ello/uno vivió - he/she/it lived
nosotros vivimos - we lived
vosotros vivisteis - you (plural) lived
ellos/ellas/ustedes vivieron - they/you (plural) lived
Future Tense:
yo viviré - I will live
tú vivirás - you will live
él/ella/ello/uno vivirá - he/she/it will live
nosotros viviremos - we will live
vosotros viviréis - you (plural) will live
ellos/ellas/ustedes vivirán - they/you (plural) will live
There you go. All three types of regular verbs conjugated in all three tenses. Now you can conjugate absolutely any regular verb. All you have to do is look at the ending of the verb, and then find the root of the verb. After that you can just look at the conjugations above and quickly figure out the form of the verb that you need. The only thing to keep in mind is that some verbs are irregular, meaning that they don't follow these specific patterns. Irregular verbs don't stick to any pattern at all, so the ones that you will be using will have to be memorized. You will learn some irregular verbs in the Verb Section.
Well congratulations! You made it through the basics of the language structure. You know the letters of the alphabet and how to pronounce them, you know how to form and simple sentence and question, you know how to conjugate regular verbs. From here on out it is smooth sailing. The rest of the site is learning vocabulary, along with important phrases and questions that you will need in your line of duty. The rest of the sections will not be as long and tedious as the previous few. Good job!
