User:Xavexgoem/spanish


 * Yet Another Spanish Book (working title, yo)

The first bit (intro hablo)
Okay, so here's probably how you were taught Spanish in school: First, the teacher has a big table on the whiteboard. You will be told there are -ar verbs, -er verbs, and -ir verbs. The teacher will write down all the pronouns: yo, usted, el, ella, nosotros, tu, ustedes, ellas, ellas, and maybe vosotros. You'll be told that the pronouns don't really matter, because in Spanish, you don't need to use pronouns! Great. Then three model verbs: hablar (to speak), comer (to eat), and vivir (to live). These are explained as infinitives, which at this point sounds like the right word to describe your attempt at learning Spanish. Anyway, then the teacher will fill out all the pronouns with their correct conjugations. Yo hablo, como, vivo; usted habla, come, vive; nosotros hablamos, comemos, vivimos; etc., etc. The bell will ring and you will come back tomorrow remembering nothing. Right?

It might be in your notebook, but that's not your memory. And so you will learn to clumsily figure out that "I speak" is "hablo" because you know I means yo, and you can look up that "speak" is "hablar", and that to conjugate hablar for the first person, you drop the -ar and add o.

I will not be writing in this fashion. First of all, "hablo" means "I speak". It does not mean the first-person conjugation for the -ar verb "to speak". It just means "I speak". Your teacher, after over-inundating you with lots of information, will give you a few nouns to promptly forget, like "Inglés", which means exactly how it looks: "English".

Saying "I speak English" in Spanish should be pretty simple (hablo Inglés). I was thinking of adding a pronunciation guide, but I hate tables. They're hard to read and they're hard to write. So you'll have to look up how to say English in Spanish. It's somewhere on Wikipedia.

Umm... A couple of language guides end with "I speak Spanish a little". "Spanish" is "Español". Just look above for "I speak English" and you should figure out how to say (or write, or whatever) "hablo Español". "A little" is "un poco". It shouldn't be hard to figure out how to say "I speak Spanish a little" (hablo Español un poco)

Yay, you learned something today. Come back tomorrow, or in fifteen minutes, or now and we'll continue.

The second bit (¿comprende entender?)
Your Spanish teacher probably also taught you some cognates, like "comprender" for "to understand". Except "comprender" means "to comprehend", which is a lot more comprehensive. The reason it's taught this way is because they'll have to prattle on about stem-changing verbs. Whatever. We're using "entender" instead, which really truly means "to understand".

"entiendo" means "I understand" and we can leave it at that. It makes more sense to say "I understand English" (entiendo Inglés) than "I comprehend English". So you can say "I understand Spanish a little" now.

Next: Asking if someone can understand. "You understand" is "entiende". Asking "do you understand?" is just raising your voice like a question near the end: "¿entiende?" The upside-down question mark is cool. You should be able to ask "do you understand English/Spanish?" (¿entiende Inglés? o ¿entiende Español? - the o means "or").

To say "you speak" is habla. You might think it's "hable", given the examples above, but No. Habla is formed from hablar, or to speak. If the full to-form of a verb ends in -ar, then you add an a instead. ("But what about irregular verbs?" We're not talking about irregular verbs).

Given that o means or, you should be able to ask: Do you speak or understand English or Spanish? (¿habla o entiende Inglés o Español?)

And, assuming they do habla o entiende Español, they'll answer sí, or yes (accents in a later bit). If they don't know Spanish, they'll say "no", which means "no" in Spanish. They might also say "sí, un poco", which you know.