Spanish grammar

A0 Starter Lessons: 28

Referring to people and things

• Subject pronounsSpanish has six subject pronouns — and it usually leaves them out.
• tú and ustedSpanish has two words for "you".

Verbs and time

• The verb serser is the "to be" of identity: who you are, where you are FROM, what your job is, what something is made of, and what…
• The verb estarestar is the "to be" of PLACE and of how something is RIGHT NOW: where a thing is, and how a person feels today.
• ser or estarThe one question that decides it: am I saying WHAT this is, or WHERE / HOW it is right now?
• The verb tenertener means "to have", and Spanish uses it where English uses "to be" for four everyday things: age, hunger, thirst and…
• llamarse and reflexive verbsSpanish says "I call myself" for "my name is": me llamo.
• Regular -ar verbsNine Spanish verbs in ten end in -ar, and they all work the same way: take off the -ar and add -o, -as, -a, -amos, -an.
• Regular -er and -ir verbsThe other two families differ from -ar in only one vowel — and from each other in only one form.
• Stem-changing verbsA group of very common verbs changes its stem vowel when the stress falls on it: e becomes ie, o becomes ue.
• The verb irir is completely irregular — voy, vas, va, vamos, van — and it does two jobs.
• The verb gustargustar runs backwards from English.
• hay — there is, there arehay means both "there is" and "there are" and NEVER changes: hay un libro, hay tres libros.
• Telling the timeOne o'clock is singular — es la una — and everything else is plural: son las tres.

Nouns and describing

• Gender: el and laEvery Spanish noun is masculine or feminine, and the article shows which: el for masculine, la for feminine.
• un and unaun and una mean "a" and follow the same gender as el and la.
• The pluralSpanish plurals are almost regular.
• Adjective agreementA Spanish adjective agrees with its noun and comes AFTER it: una casa blanca, not "una blanca casa".
• PossessivesA Spanish possessive agrees with the THING OWNED, not with the owner: mi hijo, mis hijos.
• this and thateste is what is near you, ese is what is near the person you are talking to, and aquel is what is far from both.
• NumbersSpanish numbers are three rules, not a hundred words.

Place and direction

• a, de, enThree prepositions carry most of A0.
• Saying where something isA handful of expressions place everything a beginner needs: en (in, on), al lado de (next to), enfrente de (opposite)…

Saying no

• Negation with noSpanish negation is one word in one place: no goes directly before the verb.

Asking questions

• Question wordsSeven words carry almost every question a beginner asks: qué, quién, dónde, cuándo, cuánto, cómo, por qué.
• Yes/no questionsSpanish needs no extra word to make a question — no "do", no "does".

Building the sentence

• Word orderA plain Spanish sentence is subject, verb, object — the same order as English — with two differences that matter at A0…

Joining sentences

• Joining sentencesFour words turn single sentences into speech: y (and), o (or), pero (but) and porque (because).

A1 Beginner Lessons: 28

Referring to people and things

• hace, desde, ya and todavíaFour words that carry most of the time information in a Spanish conversation.
• Direct object pronounsOnce a thing has been named, Spanish does not name it again — it replaces it with lo, la, los, las, agreeing with the…
• Indirect object pronounsThe person something is done TO or FOR: me, te, le, nos, les.
• Ordinals and datesOrdinals to tenth are worth knowing because floors, courses and forms all use them: primero, segundo, tercero, cuarto…

Verbs and time

• The present perfectThe everyday spoken past in Spain.
• Irregular participlesA short closed list you simply have to know, because they are the most frequent verbs in the language: hacer → hecho…
• The simple past — regular verbsThe tense for something finished and closed off from now: yesterday, last week, in 2019, three years ago.
• The simple past — irregular verbsThe commonest verbs are irregular, and they share a pattern worth seeing: a changed stem plus the endings -e, -iste…
• Perfect or simple past?In Spain the TIME MARKER decides, and this is the rule worth memorising.
• The imperfect: era, tenía, habíaAt A1 you need the imperfect for two jobs only: DESCRIBING how things used to be, and saying what you USED TO do.
• ir a + infinitiveThe way Spanish actually talks about the future in conversation.
• querer, poder and preferir + infinitiveThree stem-changing verbs that carry most of what a learner needs to ask for: quiero (I want), puedo (I can, I may)…
• tener que, hay que and deberThree ways of saying something must happen, and they are not interchangeable.
• Reflexive verbsWhen the action comes back to the person doing it, Spanish marks it with a pronoun: me, te, se, nos, se.
• Verbs like gustarA0 taught me gusta. A whole family works the same way, and once you see the shape you get them all free: encantar (to…
• ser and estar: quality and stateA0 split them as identity versus location.
• estar + gerundFor an action happening right now, or across a stretch of time you are inside.
• The imperative: tú and ustedTwo forms are enough for this course.
• Polite requestsA bare imperative is not rude in Spanish, but it is direct, and there are softer frames every adult uses.

Nouns and describing

• ComparativesThree frames cover almost everything.
• SuperlativesTo say "the most" put the article in front of más: el piso más caro, la mejor tarta, el libro más interesante que he…
• muy and muchoThe single most frequent small mistake at this level.

Place and direction

• por and paraThe full contrast is a later problem.
• More prepositionsSix more that A1 needs constantly.

Saying no

• Something, nothing, somebody, nobodyPairs: algo / nada for things, alguien / nadie for people, algún / ningún before a noun.

Building the sentence

• Adverbs and frequencyTo turn an adjective into an adverb, take the FEMININE form and add -mente: rápida → rápidamente, normal → normalmente.

Joining sentences

• Reasons and contrastFour words that let you stop speaking in single sentences.
• cuando and sicuando is "when" and si is "if".