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Jiffy Spanish Lesson 3: Very Basic Grammar and Language Essentials
One thing that needs to be communicated across early is the use of gender in Spanish. In English, nouns do not have genders. In Spanish, I'm afraid that they do. This means that there are actually a few more articles to learn than in English. A quick rule of thumb is if a noun ends in "a", then it is feminine, but if it ends in "o", then it is masculine.
Learning Spanish Articles
There are two different types of articles. Definite and indefinite. Definite articles are words such as "the". If you were to say "the chair", you are talking about a particular chair, not a chair in general. So therefore, indefinite articles refer to general objects. For example "a chair".
In Spanish, there are two words for "a/an". Un and una. Which one you use depends on the gender of the noun. For masculine nouns, "Un" is used. For feminine nouns, "Una" is used. Don't worry too much about what gender a noun is. You will learn this later in the course and it is something that you will have to practice over time.
There are also two words for the word "the". Once again, which one you use depends on the gender of the noun. For masculine nouns, use the word "el" and for feminine nouns, use the word "la". Simple isn't it?
Let's look at some examples of masculine and feminine nouns.
El gato esta aqui / The (male) cat is here
However, if you want to say "The (female) cat is here", you would say something a little different.
La gata esta aqui / The (female) cat is here
Plurals in Spanish are a little different to those in English. When talking about more than one thing, the definite article changes to:
Las (female), Los (male).
Lets see how the above sentences change when talking about more than one cat.
Los gatos estan aqui / The (male) cats are here
Las gatas estan aqui / The (female) cats are here\
Adjectives and Gender
Adjectives are describing words. In Spanish, adjectives also change depending on what you are talking about. Have a look at the following examples to find out what I mean.
El hombre pequeno / The small man
Note the use of El, when talking about a man? Also note how pequeno ends in an o.
La mujer pequena / The small woman
Here, note that "La" is used instead of "El". This is because the sentence is about a woman, a feminine thing. You should also note that pequeno has changed into pequena.
Las comisas rojas / The red shirts
Los libros rojos / The red books
I know you are probably overwhelmed at this point. And it can be confusing at first, but the key here is practice. Once you have got a basic grasp of Spanish, you can begin to read more Spanish and as you do this, you will automatically remember which words are masculine and which are feminine.
Spanish Word Order
Fortunately, Spanish shares the same word order as English. That is, Subject - Verb - Object. This is obvious when you think about a basic sentence like "Sally sat on the chair". Sally being the subject, sat being the verb and the chair being the object.
Supplementary Sound Clips
|
Dia (Day) |
| Joven (Young man) | |
| Ventana (Window) |
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