User:Mithridates/Spanish

Dialogue 1
Two good friends - Carmen and Roberto - are meeting:

[[Media:SpanishL1D1.ogg|Listen to the dialogue.]] (139KB)

Dialogue 2
Two people - Señor González and Señora Pérez - are meeting for the first time:

Listen to the Dialogue. [[Media:SpanishL1D2.ogg|listen]]

Vocabulary
Exercise: Greetings

Grammar: Personal Pronouns
Spanish has six different types of pronouns.

A few things to keep in mind:
 * It is normal in Spanish to omit the personal pronoun (i.e. you seldom say yo estoy bien but estoy bien, and you ask ¿Cómo se llama? instead of ¿Cómo se llama usted?) because the specific conjugation of a verb usually indicates which person is the subject. However, usted, él and ella all use the same verb form so if you choose to drop the pronoun in this case it must be clear in the situational context which pronoun is being referenced.
 * In most of Spain the vosotros form can be used to address a group of familiar people (e.g. friends), and ustedes is used with more formality (e.g. recent acquaintances). In all Latin American countries and parts of Spain ustedes is used also for a familiar group of people; in these countries the "vosotros" form is almost never used.
 * In Argentina and parts of Uruguay, the tu form is replaced with vos.
 * Usted and ustedes can be abbreviated as Ud. and Uds., respectively.

Grammar: Verbs ser and estar
Spanish has two different words that can be translated with "to be". Ser is used more for more permanent characteristics ("Soy Luis") whereas estar is used for more temporary or changeable conditions, such as location ("La papelera está al lado del escritorio", "The trash can is beside the desk") and feeling ("Estoy bien"). In future lessons we will come back to the uses of ser and estar.

Here we will look at the conjugations in the present indicative.

Ejemplos de los verbos ser y estar (Examples of the Verbs ser and estar)
Note: *This use of estar is the Spanish present progressive which is used for actions in progress. More about the present progressive in Lesson X

Dialect Note: Spanish which uses the vos form conjugates ser with the following irregular form: sos.

Exercise: Verbs ser and estar

Hay
Spanish uses a different verb (haber) to express "there is " and "there are". The form of haber used for this purpose is hay, for both singular ("there is") and plural ("there are").

Spanish alphabet
Here is the normal Spanish alphabet. However words aren't alphabetized by it. Please read the notes and sections below. (Blue letters are a part of the normal English alphabet.)

Audio: [[Media:Spanish alphabet.ogg|OGG]] (646KB)

Although the above will get you understood, proper pronunciation of Spanish consonants is a bit more complicated:

Most of the consonants are pronounced as they are in American English with these exceptions:
 * b like the English b at the start of a word and after m or n; otherwise closer to v (in Latin America there's no distinction)
 * c before a, o, u and other consonants, like English k
 * c before i and e like English th in “think” (in Latin America is like English s)
 * ch like ch in “cheese”
 * d between vowels (even if it starts a word following a word ending in a vowel) or at the end of a word, like English d in dental
 * g before e or i like the Scottish pronunciation of ch in “loch”, except that it is voiced
 * g before a or o like g in “get”
 * h is always silent (except in the digraf ch)
 * j like the h in hotel
 * ll is pronounced like English y in “yes”
 * ñ like nio in “onion” (or gn in French cognac)
 * q like the English k
 * r slighty trilled; like a soft d except at the beginning of a word or after l, n or s where it is trilled
 * rr should be trilled longer than a single r
 * v is pronounced like a cross between a v and a b
 * z like the English th (in Latin America is like English s)

Vowel pronunciation
The pronunciation of vowels is as follows:

The "u" is always silent after "q" (as in "qué" pronounced kā).
 * a [a] "La Mano" as in "Kahn"         (ah)
 * e [e] "Mente" as the ay in "day" (e)
 * i [i] "Sin" as the ea in "lean"  (i)
 * o [o] "Como" as in "no".             (short o)
 * u [u] "Lunes" as in "toon" or "loom" (oo)

Spanish also uses the ¨ (diaeresis) diacritic mark over the vowel u to indicate that it is pronounced separately in places where it would normally be silent. For example, in words such as vergüenza ("shame") or pingüino ("penguin"), the u is pronounced as in the English "w" and so forms a diphthong with the following vowel: [we] and [wi] respectively. It is also used to preserve sound in stem changes and in commands.

Semi-Vowels

 * y [j] "Rey" as in the y of "yet".

Acute accents
Spanish uses the ´ (Acute) diacritic mark over vowels to indicate a vocal stress on a word that would normally be stressed on another syllable; Stress is contrastive. For example, the word ánimo is normally stressed on a, meaning "mood, spirit." While animo is stressed on ni meaning "I cheer." And animó is stressed on mó meaning "he cheered."

Additionally the acute mark is used to disambiguate certain words which would otherwise be homographs. It's used in various question word or relative pronoun pairs such as cómo (how?)& como (as), dónde(where?) & donde (where), and some other words such as tú (you) & tu (your), él (he/him) & el (the).

Emphasis
The rules of stress in Spanish are:

1. When the word ends in a vowel or in "n" or "s" the emphasis falls on the second to last syllable.

Eg: Mañana, Como, Dedos, Hablan.

2. When the word ends in a consonant other than "n" or "s", the emphasis falls on the last syllable.

Eg: Ciudad, Comer, Reptil.

3. If the above two rules don't apply, there will be an accent to show the stress.

Eg: Fíjate, Inglés, Teléfono.

4. SPECIAL CASE: Adverbs ending in -mente, which are derived from adjectives, have two stresses. The first stress occurs in the adjective part of the adverb, on the syllable where the adjective would normally be stressed. The second stress occurs on the -men- syllable.

Eg: Solamente, Felizmente, Cortésmente.

The Indefinite Article
In English the indefinite articles are a and an (singular) or some (plural). In Spanish there are different forms for masculine-gender, feminine-gender, singular or plural.

Examples: For phonetic reasons some words beginning with accented a may have the article un: un ave blanca (a white bird), las aves blancas (the white birds). This is basically the same idea as el ave blanca (the white bird).

Remember, do not confuse uno (one) with un (a or an). Also, do not confuse una (a or an) with uña (fingernail).

Exercise: Spanish/Exercises/Articles

Text
Here are a couple of sentences and short dialogs about people planning/doing leisure activities. Besides the new vocabulary you should also have a look at how the verbs are conjugated depending on the subject of the sentence.

As you may see, each verb is bolded. These verbs are conjugated, that is, changed by the person(s) to which they are referring. Notice that subject pronouns are not necessary.

Regular Verbs
Spanish has three different types of regular verbs: -ar, -er, and -ir verbs. The subject pronoun is not necessary and in conversational Spanish it is only used for emphasis, for this lesson, we will omit it. One can still use pronouns, however. The conjugation pattern is the following:

As one can see, the endings for each person are different. This is similar to other Romance languages, such as Portuguese and Italian (the notable exception is French). This is the reason why we may omit the pronouns while we speak. Remember that sometimes it is best to clarify whether él, ella, or usted is speaking, because they share the same form. However, the context of the rest of the sentence sometimes clarifies this. There are a few steps involved with conjugating a verb. Here are the steps involved:
 * 1) Take the ending off of the infinitive. This is either an -ar, -er, or -ir.
 * 2) Without the -ar, -er, or -ir, the verb is in its base form.
 * 3) Add the appropriate ending to the base of the verb.

Notice that there are only two differences between the conjugations of -er and -ir verbs. The nosotros (4) and vosotros (5) forms are the only differences. Those forms have an "i" in the stem instead of an "e."

Exercise: Regular Verbs

"G" Verbs
The verb hacer means to do or to make. Hacer is irregular in the first person singular form (I) of the present tense only. The irregular form is hago. Hacer is one of the many verbs in Spanish which add a "g" in the first person singular of the verb. This is the present indicative of the verb hacer.

Note that the verb hacer is translated as to do and to make when referring to activities. But it can also be used to talk about weather conditions:

When speaking about the weather using hacer, the Ud. form (third singular form) is always used.

El vocabulario (Vocabulary) - Los días (Days)
Audio: [[Media:The days of the week.ogg|OGG]] (157KB)


 * The Spanish week begins on Monday (el lunes), unlike the English week (which begins on Sunday/el domingo).

Una fiesta


Una fiesta entre amigos. Nosotros bailamos y convivimos en el jardín de esta casa. ''A party among friends. We dance and enjoy ourselves in the patio (garden) of this house.''

Stem Changing Verbs
In Spanish, some verbs change their stems when they are conjugated. These verbs are known as stem-changing verbs. Many of these verbs are important and often used. There are three different types of stem changing verbs in Spanish:

The stem changes for all conjugations, excepting nosotros/as and vosotros/as. The endings are the same as for regular verbs (-o for yo, -as/-es for tú, ...).

Entender To Understand

Note that the stem change is done for the second 'e' (not the first one) - in general the stem always changes for the last vowel before the -ar/-er/-ir ending.

Example: pedir (e->i) to ask for, to order

Pedir To Ask For, Order

Note: all e->i stem changing verbs are -ir verbs.

Dormir To Sleep

Here is a list of some other common stem changing verbs:

Exercise: Stem Changing Verbs

Present Participle
The present participle in Spanish is used either for continuous tenses (with estar, e.g. I am running.) and can also be used as an adjective. The Spanish present participle corresponds to the English -ing form of the verb.To form the present participle for regular -ar verbs, add -ando to the stem. For -er and -ir verbs add -iendo:

However, not all present participles are that regular. Some verbs add a "y," or change the spelling, to adhere to Spanish orthography (spelling) rules. Here is a list of some common verbs that have an irregular present participle:

Present Progressive
Like in English, the Spanish present progressive is used to describe an action in progress. It is formed by conjugating the verb estar and then adding the present participle:

Grammar - Questions
Like in English, yes/no questions in Spanish are formed by switching the position of subject and verb (if the subject is explicit). Unlike English, Spanish uses a reversed question mark (¿) at the beginning of a question:

become

For other type of questions Spanish uses the following question words (note that all of them have an accent in the word):

Here are some Spanish sentences where specific question words are used:

Questions can also be posed within a sentence:

Exercise: Questions

Grammar - Possessive Adjectives
Like English, the Spanish possessive adjectives differ depending on the person they are referring to. Unlike English, the possessive article also changes depending on the number of items that one possesses (for example: mi libro = my book, mis libros = my books). It can also change depending on the gender of the item (for example: nuestro perro = our dog, nuestra casa = our house). The following table summarizes all Spanish possessive adjectives:


 * Possessive Pronouns are not used when talking about body parts:

Exercise: Possessive Adjectives

Equality
Spanish uses three slightly different constructions for comparisons of equality. One for comparing verbs, one for comparing nouns and one for comparing adjectives/adverbs. The following examples show the three different possibilities:

When comparing nouns, the ending of tanto will be modified to tanta, tantos, or tantas in order to match gender and quantity of the noun. The general pattern for comparisons of equality is the following:

Inequality
For comparisons of inequality, Spanish uses the same form for both nouns and adjectives/adverbs. There are two types of inequalities: más ... que (more than) and '''menos ... que' (less than''):

In general:

Superlatives
Superlatives in Spanish are similar to comparisons of inequality: They use más for the most, menos for the least. Then follows the adjective and finally there is a preposition (de):

Note that in some cases (la más inteligente) you can just write the article and omit the noun. The general pattern for Spanish superlatives is:

Exercise: Comparisons

Direct Object Pronouns
While the subject of a sentence initiates an action (the verb), the direct object is the one that is affected by the action. A direct object pronoun is used to refer to the direct object of a previous sentence:

The following table shows the six types of direct object pronouns:

Note: In Spain, le and les are used as the masculine direct object pronoun only when referring to people. If the antecedent of a direct object is masculine but non-human, lo or los are used instead. In most other Spanish speaking places, lo and los are used instead of le and les.

Indirect Object Pronouns
An indirect object is an object that would be asked for with To whom...? or From whom...?. It is called indirect because it occurs usually together with a direct object which is affected directly by the action:

The apple is given by the woman (direct). The boy gets the given apple (indirect - depends on the apple being given).

Here is a table with all of the Spanish indirect object pronouns:

Position Of Object Pronouns (Double Object Pronouns)
So far we have only seen sentences with one object pronoun. If there is both a direct and an indirect object pronoun, the indirect pronoun usually comes first:

Also, when both object pronouns are in the third person (either singular or plural), the indirect pronoun changes from le/les to se:

In sentences that contain an infinitive or a participle, the object pronoun may be either placed before the conjugated verb or it maybe attached to the infinitive/participle:

It is possible to have the two rules above working at the same time: A combination of direct and indirect pronouns that is attached to an infinitive/participle:

Exercise:Object Pronouns

Vocabulario (Vocabulary) - La comida (The food)
In Spain and several other countries, comida is the midday meal. In other countries, for example Chile, comida is the last meal in the day.

Instead of saying desayuno, comida y cena (Spain) or desayuno, almuerzo y comida (Chile, Colombia), it's safer to say desayuno, almuerzo y cena.

The word comida has several meanings
 * food Me gusta la comida mexicana
 * meal El desayuno es la principal comida del día
 * lunch La comida es a las 2 PM
 * dinner La comida es a las 9 PM

Note that due to the pervasive influence of English, in many supermarkets there is a section called Vegetales instead of Verduras. They mistranslate vegetable, forgetting that this is not the same as English vegetal (relating to plants).


 * Legumbres means the same thing as verduras (vegetables).

Grammar - Preterite (el pretérito indefinido)
The following table shows the preterite of regular verbs. Regular -er and -ir verbs follow the exact same pattern. Note that the nosotros form is the same as in the present tense for -ar and -ir verbs, so you have to know the context to figure out the time. Also, note that the last letter of comí and viví has an accent mark.

Here is a list of common verbs that have an irregular preterite:

Exercise: Preterite

Grammar - Imperfect (el pretérito imperfecto)
The following table shows the imperfect of regular verbs. Note that regular -er and -ir verbs follow the exact same pattern:

There are only three verbs that are irregular in the imperfect:

Grammar - Preterite vs. Imperfect
Spanish has two tenses that correspond to the English simple past. Roughly speaking, the Preterite is used to tell What happened - it refers to a specific event.

The Imperfect is used to tell How things were - it refers to the general situation.

Exercise: Preterite vs. Imperfect

Grammar - Formal Commands (el imperativo)
Commands are used when you ask someone to do something or give instructions to people. In this lesson we learn the formal commands, which are the ones you say to persons where you use the usted or ustedes form. The following table shows the endings for the regular verbs. Note that the stem changes that occur in the yo form, (e->ie, e->i, o->ue, ar/er/ir->go cer->zco etc., ) apply for formal commands:

The following verbs have irregular formal commands:

Like in English, the command is usually put in the beginning of the sentence:

Examples:

Grammar - Informal Tú-Commands
In this lesson we learn the commands you say to someone you would address in the tú form. Spanish distinguishes two different types of tú-commands, the affirmative (do something) and the negative (don't do something). Like the formal commands, we also apply stem changes here:

The following verbs have irregular informal tú-commands for the affirmative and negative.

This can be memorized with the rhyming mnemonic device "di haz pon ten, sal sé ve ven."

Examples:

Vocabulario

 * Por ejemplo (for example)
 * ¿Por qué no vamos al parque?     Why don't we go to the park?
 * La fuente es linda.              The fountain is beautiful.
 * Hay mucha gente en el parque hoy. There are a lot of people in the park today.

Grammar - Past Participle (el participio)
Spanish uses the past participle primarily for present perfect, past perfect, and other similar times. For -ar verbs form the past participle by adding -ado to the stem. For -er and -ir verbs add -ido:

If the stem of an -er or -ir verb ends in one of the vowels -a, -e, or -o, the i of -ido gets an accent mark:

There are a few verbs with an irregular past participle:

As in English, the past participle can also be used as an adjective for a noun. In that case the ending has to match gender and number of the noun. Example:

Finally, there are a few verbs with both a regular and an irregular past participle. In this case, the irregular past participle is used as an adjective, while the regular form is used for the verb tenses.

Grammar - Present Perfect (el pretérito perfecto)
The Spanish present perfect is formed by conjugating the auxiliary verb haber (= to have) and adding the past participle of the verb.

Here are a few examples of the Spanish Present perfect. Note that in Spanish the auxiliary verb haber and the past participle are never separated:

Grammar - Pluperfect (el pretérito pluscuamperfecto)
The Spanish pluperfect is formed by conjugating imperfect of haber (= to have) and adding the past participle of the verb.

Here are a few examples of the Spanish pluperfect. It is used to refer to an event that happened before another event in the past. As in the present perfect, the auxiliary verb haber and the past participle are never separated: