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THE SPANISH LANGUAGE
& SPANISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES
Use this button to access information about
Spain, Hispanic countries, their peoples, history, culture, etc.
SOME BASICS OF GRAMMAR
Choose from the Following Categories
1) NOUNS
2) ARTICLES
3) GENDER
4) NUMBER
5) ADJECTIVES
6) VERBS
7) SELF_GRADED QUIZ ON REFLEXIVE VERBS
8) INFINITIVES
9) PRONOUNS
10) DIRECT OBJECT PRONOUNS
11) SOME HELPFUL SPANISH GRAMMAR LINKS TO OTHER
WEBSITES
12) SPANISH COURSES ON THE INTERNET
NOUNS:
A noun is the name of a person, place or thing. It can also be an abstract thing like a thought, for example. All nouns in Spanish have a gender, i.e. they are either masculine or feminine. All nouns have "number" (how many there are). See later categories for "gender" and "number".
Examples:
el libro= the book (book is "masculine" since it has an "el" with it).
un libro= a book (book is "masculine" since it has an "un" with it).
la mesa= the table (table is "feminine" since it has a "la" with it).
una mesa= a table (table is "feminine" since it has an "una" with it).
I have underlined the "el", "la", "un" and "una". These are called "articles" and they identify the "gender" of the noun.
ARTICLES:
There are two types of articles:
1) the definite article "the" in English is "el" or "la" in Spanish.
2) the indefinite article "a" or "an" in English is "un" or "una" in Spanish.
"unos" and "unas" mean "some" or "a few" in English.
GENDER:
This is the word used to define masculine or feminine. If a word is masculine, its "gender" is masculine.
Example:
el libro is masculine because its article "el" is masculine "gender".
If a word is feminine, its "gender" is feminine.
Example:
la mesa is feminine "gender" because its article "la" is feminine "gender".
NUMBER:
In the examples above, the nouns have all been "singular", i.e. there is only one of them. If there are more than one, then we must make the nouns "plural". In English, we usually add an "s". In Spanish, it is similar, but we must make both the article and its noun "plural".
For example:
the books is los libros
the tables is las mesas
ADJECTIVES:
This is the describing word (in English big, small, yellow, green).
Examples:
the red book = el libro rojo
a red book = un libro rojo
the white table =
la mesa blanca
a white table = una mesa blanca
You will have noticed that the adjective is placed after the noun it describes. "Rojo" describes the book and "blanca" describes the table .
You will have further noticed that "rojo" has an extra "o" on the end. This is because "el libro", or "un libro" is masculine and the adjective must agree with the noun it describes.
You will have further noticed that "blanca" has an extra "a" on the end. This is because "la mesa" or "una mesa" is feminine and the adjective must agree with the noun it describes in gender.
Adjectives agree with their nouns not only in GENDER, but also in NUMBER(how many there are).
Example:
the red books = los libros
some red books = unos libros
the white tables = las mesas
blancas
some white tables = unas mesas blancas
VERBS:
A verb is an action word. In English the words "to play", "to run" and "to do" are all action words, therefore, they are all verbs. You will notice that English verbs have "to" in front of them. This is called the "infinitive" form. Spanish verbs are also found in the dictionary under their infinitive form.
SELF-GRADED QUIZ ON REFLEXIVE VERBS:
Try my own self-grading quiz on Reflexive verbs
INFINITIVES:
Spanish verbs are found in three groups:
1) "-ar" for example:
cantar - to sing
2) "-er" for example: comer - to eat
3) "-ir" for example: escribir to write
PRONOUNS:
Pronouns replace the noun. For instance if you had a series of sentences with a noun that was always repeated it would soon become tiresome. There are different types of pronouns, but I am going to deal with only one here: the personal pronoun, also known as the "subject pronoun".
Example: "John is going to the market. John is going to buy some tomatoes. John is wearing a pair of jeans. John is wearing a white shirt. John is wearing black shoes."
By the time you have said John five times your listener will get pretty fed up. So what we do is replace some of the 'Johns' by he. We would also change the sentence structure to make it better, but the sentences above serve merely to illustrate a point. So our example with the use of a few strategically placed pronouns would look something like this:
"John is going to the market. He is going to buy some tomatoes. John is wearing a pair of jeans, a white shirt and he is wearing black shoes." "He" is the pronoun because it replaces the noun 'John'.
DIRECT OBJECT PRONOUNS:
A. What is a direct object?
A direct object receives the direct action of the verb.
In the sentence “I send the gift”, the verb is “send”.
If we ask “send what?” or “send whom?”, the answer tells us the direct object of the verb.
In this sentence, the answer to this question is “gift”. So, “gift” is the direct object of the verb “send”.
B. What is a pronoun?
Pronouns take the place of nouns. (Nouns are a person, place or thing).
Ex. I send the gift.
Yo mando el regalo. “Gift (regalo)” is a noun, it is a thing.
Now, let’s replace the noun “gift (regalo)” with a pronoun.
Let’s say, “I send it”. “It” is a pronoun, it takes the place of the noun “gift”.
The pronoun represents the noun it replaces. So, in Spanish, it must show the same gender (masc.or fem.) and the same number (singular or plural) of the noun it replaces.
Ex. I send it (referring to "gift (regalo)".
We must use a pronoun that is masculine and singular, since the noun “regalo” is masculine and singular.
We have 2 choices for “it” in Spanish:
1) “lo” which is used to replace masculine singular nouns and
2) “la” which is used to replace feminine singular nouns.
To replace “regalo”, a masculine singular noun, our only choice is “lo”, since “regalo” and “lo” are both masculine and singular.
C. DIRECT OBJECT PRONOUNS
Ex. “I send the gift” “Yo mando el regalo” becomes
“I send it” “Yo lo mando”.
Ex. “I send the gifts” “Yo mando los regalos” becomes
“I send them” “Yo los mando”.
Ex. “I send the letter” “Yo mando la carta” becomes
“I send it” “Yo la mando”.
Ex. “I send the letters” “Yo mando las cartas” becomes
“I send them” “Yo las mando”.
SOME HELPFUL SPANISH GRAMMAR LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES:
Please check out these links to foreign language grammar sites especially www.studyspanish.com which not only has grammar tutorials, but also self quizzes.
-Study Spanish.com Has many grammar tutorials and related exercises
-Basic Spanish for the online Student
-Spanish for Beginners
A Spanish primer from About.com
-Spanish Lessons Lessons from the textbook "Más Arriba"
-300 Irregular Verb Conjugations
-Webspañol Links to learning Spanish
-Spanish Grammar Grammar exercises by category, includes answers
-Advanced Spanish Grammar Spanish 3 and 4 grammar exercises and answers
-Webespañol Many Links,irregular verbs, pronunciation, proverbs, idioms
-Foreign Language Resources on the Web This page has many links
-The Human Languages Page The Human-Languages Page is a comprehensive catalog of language-related Internet resources. The more than 2000 links in the HLP database have been hand-reviewed to bring you the best language links the Web has to offer.
SPANISH COURSES on the INTERNET:
-Sí, Spain Spanish courses offered by a number of different organizations. This is from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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