Spanish

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Last Updated: Wednesday, 26 June 2024 23:41

Published: Tuesday, 05 April 2022 23:34

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Spanish language:

There is a series of videos on youtube that I found very useful. The channel name is "The Language Tutor", and it has 140 lessons. The guy explains it very nicely and gives reasoning where needed:

Language Tutor Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheLanguageTutor

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv63dFTP4Sjq6knRsZQI-bTnRE38cZZoy

Spanish with Qroo Paul: One other very unique and amazing style of teaching is by "Qroo Paul" here on his playlist (from Cero to Conversational): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlo8JO-R9k-IWmsZRtZYzI7xiPdIUsfVq

Start from lesson 1 in his playlist, and keep moving. There is no grammer involved, just patterns he figured out which are incredibly valuable for English speakers. I had never seen these before in any Spanish class. I've included his lessons in below sections as needed. At least go thru the first 4 videos, they are very helpful to get you started with zero Spanish knowledge.

TheLanguageBro's Full Spanish tutorial (4 hrs): This is the most complete Spanish video from beginning to end. It's 4 hrs, and prepared to cover everything. Absolutely awesome (watch 10 min/day) => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHDZSHCt1DE

SpanishPod101 (4hrs): Starts with very nicely arranged basic concepts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE-03EATjho

Few tidbits about Spanish language:

• Alphabets: Spanish has same alphabets as English, though pronunciation is different.
• Sentence Order: Just like in English, Spanish follows SVO (subject verb object) order for sentences. i,e I read books => yo leo libros. Here we have subject "I", then verb "read" and finally object "books". When it's a negative statement with "not", we put the no before the verb. i.e I don't read books => yo no leo libros.
• Capitalization: Spanish doesn't capitalize a lot of words that English does. Ex, days of weeks, months, seasons, as Monday, Winter, October, etc. Names of countries and cities are capitalized, but languages are not.
• Cognates: A lot of words in Spanish are same as in English with minor differences. Words which are same or similar in 2 languages are called "cognates". There are about 1000 such cognates in English/Spanish. This happens since both languages come from Greek or Latin, which themselves shared many common origin. One common trick is to add an "o" at the end for masculine things or an "a" at the end for feminine things, when converting from English. These are few basic tips for words which are similar in 2 languages:
  • Link: https://www.spanishwriterpro.com/study-spanish-help/spanish-words-that-are-almost-the-same-in-english/
  • Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ozf-mSpMFk
    
    • A lot of Spanish words are same as in English. ex: actor, animal, etc. Pronounce them differently (as they would be in Spanish, and NOT in English)
      
      • English words ending in -al, -ar, -ble usually stay the same.
        • Ending in -al: animal, festival, final,criminal, hospital, normal, digital, legal, individual, etc.
        • Ending in -ar: familiar, popular,
        • Ending in -le: cable, horrible
    • Spanish words add an "o" at the end for a lot of masculine things. More details in gender section below. These transforms are all masculine, since they end in -o. Ex:
      • English words ending in -ous usually become -oso. ex: famous becomes famoso, Curious becomes Curioso
      • English words ending in -ct usually become -cto, -ic becomes -ico, -id becomes -ido, -ment becomes -mento, . ex: exact becomes exacto, perfect becomes perfecto, public becomes publico, basic becomes basico, fluid becomes fluido, acide becomes acido, document becomes documento, moment becomes momento,
      • English words ending in –ary usually become -ario. ex: Ordinary becomes ordinario, salary becomes salario
    • Spanish words add an "a" at the end for a lot of feminine things. More details in gender section below. These transforms are all feminine, since they end in -a. Ex:
      •  English words ending in –ance/-ence usually become -ancia/-encia. ex: ambulance becomes ambulancia, distance becomes distancia, violence becomes violencia,
    • English words ending in in "ity" and "ty" many times have the Spanish endings "idad" or "dad". If plural, add es at end, i.e dades. Mostly feminine (see in gender hack below).
      
      • Ex: calamity becomes calamidad, cruelty becomes crueldad, city becomes ciudad (extra u gets added, pronounced ciu not qui), christianity becomes christiandad, commodities becomes commodidades, etc.
    • English words ending in -tion have the Spanish ending -ción (with emphasis on o, since it has an accent on it). All these words become feminine in spanish (even though they don't have -o at the end, they are still feminine. May be, a new rule that says -ción makes them feminine. So use "la" for "the"). Also, to make it plural, add an -es at the end -ciones => see in "noun" section).
      
      • ex:
        • abduction becomes abducción,
        • imagination becomes imaginación,
        • creation => creación,
        • invitation => invitación,
        • documentation => documentación,
        • information => información,
        • verification => verificación,
        • prolongation =>  prolongación,
        • action => acción, 
        • option => opción,
      • exceptions:
        • Words starting with s and followed by consonant will become es-.
          • ex: station => estación ( estación may mean seasons too)
        • Double letters that don't change the sound are reduced to single letter, i.e SS to S, MM to M, etc. Words where double letters are needed for sound (-oo-, -rr-), they are kept.
          • Double letter dropped: recommendation => recomendación, communication => comunicación, illumination => iluminación
          • Double letter kept (since important for sound): cooperation => cooperación, narration => narración, 
        • Some other exceptions:
          • translation => traducción (and NOT translación).
          • demonstration => demostración (n dropped), immigration => inmigración (first m replaced with n), humiliaion => humillación (extra L added resulting in y sound), 
          • authorization => autorización (th in English often converts to just t in spanish), 
          • interruption => interrupción (NO -ación). Look in -ar verb section for detail.
          • caution or "be careful" => cuidado (koo-e-dado). It's often seen in warnings on wet floors, road signs, etc as ¡Cuidado!. Ciudad (see-o-dad) is similar looking word with i and u reversed which means city (see in word/phrase section). cuidado also means care, worry, etc. Verb "cuidar" means to take care of.
    • English words ending in -ant usually become -ante.
      
      • ex: important becomes importante, brilliant becomes brilliante, elegant => elegante
      • restaurant => el restaurante
      • interesting => interesante, during => durante  (these are exceptions)
• Word pair: Many pair of words (i.e post office, identity card, etc) in Spanish add a "of" in between the words, and say it as "office of post", "card of Identity", etc. "of' is translated as "de".
  • ex: the post office => In Spanish it's called "the office of post" or "oficina de correos". Since main noun is oficina, which is female, we say "la oficina de correos"
  • Identity card => El carné de Identidad (the card of Identity)
  • Travel agency =>
• Accent: Spanish has words with and without accent on vowels (a, e, i, o, u), but exactly the same spelling. Ex: como vs cómo. These are difficult to differentiate while speaking, but have to be written correctly or else the meaning will change. Accent implies that the vowel with the accent needs to be stressed. It's difficult to notice any difference when one is speaking these words. This is one area where I struggle, since it's very difficult to remember these. More about these in alphabets and numbers section. 
  • One special case is letter "u", which is usually silent. But when u follows g, i.e "gu", it's sometimes pronounced. In that case, u is written as ü (u with double dots on top). ex: guerra => pronounced gerra meaning war (u is silent). ex: pingüino => pronounced as "pen-goo-eeno) meaning penguin (u is not silent).

Parts of Speech:

Parts of speech are the words that make up any sentence. There are 9 parts of speech. Below video explains it => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDUd4kw8op4

We'll cover each part of speech in a separate section. To summarize, these are:

1. Nouns: Nouns are names, places, things, etc. Nouns have a gender (male/female) in Spanish, and it's fixed for that noun. Simple change to the noun ending can change gender. Nouns can be made singular/plural by adding suffix -s or -es to any nooun..
   1. ex: chico => boy, chica => girl, chicos => boys, chicas => girls (see how the noun's ending change based on gender and number)
2. Determiners: Determiners specify a noun's distance, quantity, possesion, etc. These are words like a, an, the, this, that, etc. Determiners go exclusively with nouns, and change based on noun's gender and number. This is different than English language where determiners don't change. Determiners are always placed before the noun.
   
   1. ex: a boy => un chico, a girl => una chica, some boys => unos chicos, some girls => unas chicas (see how the determiners change based on noun's gender and number)
3. Adjectives: Adjectives describe a noun. Ex: fat boy => here fat is an adjective as it describes noun "boy". In English, adjectives come before a noun, but in Spanish, adjectives almost always come after a noun. Just like determiners, adjectives change based on noun's gender and number. This is again different than English language where adjectives remain unchanged.
   
   1. ex: fat boys => chicos gordos, fat girl => chica gorda (see how adjectives changed based on gender and number, and came after the noun)
4. Verbs: Verbs are action as walk, talk, etc. All verbs in Spanish end in -ar, -er or -ir. Verbs change (conjugate) based on subject and number, so a 3x2 table is provided for each verb. Verbs also change based on tense (i.e past, present, future, etc), and indicate the time of action. In English, verbs change too (run vs runs vs running), but in Spanish they change in many more forms than in English, as each subject noun/pronoun + tense has different ending.
   
   1. ex: to walk => caminar. I walk => yo camino, we walk => nosotros caminamos. (seehow verb caminar changed forms based on subject)
5. Pronouns: Pronouns are used instead of a noun. ex: he, she, I, etc. All pronouns mark number (singular or plural). Some of them mark gender too (but not many)
   1. ex: I am mexican => yo soy mexicana. me => my.
6. Adverbs: Adverbs describe adjectives or verbs. For verbs, it describes actions => how, when, where something happens.
7. Prepositions: These are linking words, and most used ones. Ex: but, in, on, for, etc. There are 14 key prepositions in spanish.
8. Conjunctions: Words like pero, y, etc. These words are also categorized as Adverbs, and prepositions.
9. Interjections: