Cardinal Numerals

Cardinal numerals are, in plain English, the normal numbers, that is, not the ordinal numbers such as first, second, etc.

From 0 to 10

Each of these numbers need to be learned by heart, as they are the most basic ones and will be the foundations for bigger numbers.

• cero

• uno

• dos

• tres

• cuatro

• cinco

• seis

• siete

• ocho

• nueve

• diez

From 11 to 19

In this group we have two kinds of numbers: those which you also need to learn by heart (11-15) and those which are formed by diez (diec‑) + y (‑i‑) + unit (16-19).

• once

• doce

• trece

• catorce

• quince

• dieciséis

• diecisiete

• dieciocho

• diecinueve

From 20 to 100

What you have to take into account here is that you should learn the tens (20, 30, 40…) totally by heart. Then, 21-29 are slightly irregular and written in one word. After that, everything is completely regular: ten + y + unit.

• veinte

• veintiuno

• veintidós

• veintitrés

• veinticuatro

• veinticinco

• veintiséis

• veintisiete

• veintiocho

• veintinueve

• treinta

• treinta y uno

• treinta y dos

Notice the diphthong in the root of veinte and treinta. It won’t appear from now on:

• cuarenta (40)

• cincuenta (50)

• sesenta (60)

• setenta (70)

• ochenta (80)

• noventa (90)

• cien (100)

Tens + Units

Starting from 30, it is supereasy to make numbers such as 38, 46, 72 or 99. You just have to use the following pattern: ten + y + unit (three different words). And that’s it!

For example, it would be treinta y ocho, cuarenta y seis, setenta y dos and noventa y nueve.

There are bigger numbers, and we will study them. But for now, this is good enough!

That means that we must also learn Spanish reflexive pronouns and how they work together with pronominal verbs, both in the infinitive and in the present tense.

Reflexive Pronouns

Don’t try to understand why these pronouns are reflexive. For now, we just need them for pronominal verbs such as llamarse (as in Me llamo Paco).

The following list includes the already known subject pronouns on the left and the reflexive pronouns on the right:

• yo → me

• tú → te

• él, ella, usted → se

• nosotros, ‑as → nos

• vosotros, ‑as → os

• ellos, ellas, ustedes → se

As you can see, the third person both singular and plural are the same: se. Also, notice that nosotros → nos, but vosotros → os, not *vos.

Pronoun and Verb

The order of the pronoun and the verb is important. As you can see, llamarse is made from the infinitive llamar and the reflexive pronoun se, all written in the same word.

However, the present tense is formed in another way: first goes the reflexive pronoun, and then the conjugated verb, written separately. So this is the result:

• yo me llamo

• tú te llamas

• él, ella, usted se llama

• nosotros, ‑as nos llamamos

• vosotros, ‑as os llamáis

• ellos, ‑as, ustedes se llaman

Notice that the reflexive pronoun agrees with the subject pronoun (both when it is explicit or not), which means that the reflexive pronoun agrees with the verb. Everything agrees!

Unlike the subject pronoun, which is not used often, the reflexive pronoun in pronominal verbs is used every time!

And that’s it! Not so hard, after all! Also, these pronouns will be superuseful in the near future for other very frequent functions.

Main Characteristics of Nouns

Nouns are the words which refer to things, people, animals, concepts, etc. For example, the word noun is a noun; also cow, computer or beauty are nouns.

In English, nouns (usually) have a singular form (noun, cow, computer, beauty) and a plural form (nouns, cows, computers, beauties^?). Nouns are also the words that can be preceded by determiners such as articles (a noun, the nouns, etc.), demostratives (this cow, those cows), etc.

The biggest difference between Spanish and English is that Spanish nouns have gender (masculine or feminine), even if they refer to an object. Since English nouns don’t have gender per se, this basic characteristic is problematic at first to English speakers.

Gender

The first thing we have to understand is that gender doesn’t refer to biology, but to grammar. That’s why we could also talk about grammatical gender.

Only with living beings does grammatical gender coincide with biological gender. With objects, however, there’s no biological gender, but there’s always grammatical gender.

The word for woman is mujer, which is feminine. The word for man is hombre, which is masculine. That’s easy. However, the word for table is mesa, feminine, and the word for book is libro, masculine.

Why would a table be feminine, and a book, masculine? Just like that. Deal with it.

When you learn a noun, you shouldn’t just learn its spelling-pronunciation and meaning: you should also learn its gender.

Common Gender Endings

Around half of the nouns are quite straight-forward when it comes to gender, since you can get it from its ending. As a rule of thumb, this is the basic correspondence between the ending of a noun and its gender:

• ‑a → feminine (e.g. niña)

• ‑o → masculine (e.g. niño)

Of course, there are some exceptions that you’ll learn on the way, such as mano (feminine) or problema (masculine).

Then, you’ll find that around half of the words don’t fall into any of those two endings. We can’t know the gender of those words beforehand.

There are some common suffixes, such as ‑dad or ‑tad (English ‑ty), for example universidad or libertad, which are always feminine. Other than these cases, you must learn genders by heart.

Plural

It is quite easy to make the plural of a noun from its singular (and also to form the singular from its plural).

In general, you just add ‑s to the singular form to make the plural:

• puerta → puertas

• cuaderno → cuadernos

But if the word ends with a consonant, then you need to add ‑es:

• pared → paredes

• papel → papeles

• poder → poderes

• camión → camiones

Yes, there are exceptions to everything we have studied in this class, but for now we’re good!

They also happen to be quite irregular even in the present. This means we have to learn every one of the six forms of each verb by heart!

The Verb Ser (To Be)

This is the most irregular verb in Spanish (also in English, if you think about it!), to the point that some of the forms don’t even make sense if we compare them to other more normal verbs.

• soy

• eres

• es

• somos

• sois

• son

The Verb Tener (To Have)

This one has two different types of irregularities. One of them (e – ie) is going to be happening quite often in other verbs, whereas the ‑g‑ in the 1st person singular is rarer, but will also appear in other frequent verbs.

• tengo

• tienes

• tiene

• tenemos

• tenéis

• tienen

Just learn them by heart. Don’t despair. Most of the verbs are regular, and even the irregular ones usually have only a few irregularity patterns.

Aficiones

The Spanish word for hobbies is aficiones (plural), but many natives would just use the English word (with Spanish accent) or even try to mention the concept and go directly to the point:

—¿Cuáles son tus aficiones?

—¿Cuáles son tus hobbies?

—¿Qué te gusta hacer?

—¿Qué haces en tu tiempo libre?

That said, let’s give a list of some common hobbies:

• cocinar — cooking

• ver/mirar la tele — watching TV

• pintar — painting

• leer — reading

• escribir — writing

• cantar — singing

• bailar — dancing

• viajar — traveling

• hacer deporte — doing/playing sports

• tocar la guitarra — playing guitar

• jugar a las cartas — playing cards

• jugar al ordenador / a la consola — playing videogames

• ir al cine — going to the cinema

• ir de compras — going shopping

• salir a comer — eating out

There you have a few hobbies in Spanish! Try to pay attention to the differences in small words between English and Spanish (e.g. we say tocar la guitarra, not *jugar la guitarra; we say ir de compras, but ir al cine, etc.).

You will see that, at first, it is quite easy, as the Spanish spelling system is quite consistent. Most letters match with one sound, and most sounds match with one letter.

Spanish Letters, and How They Sound

The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters, plus some other combinations of letters required to represent some sounds.

Spanish has only 5 vowels: a, e, i, o, u. As simple (or not!) as that. They always sound the same.

Now let’s go with consonants. Most of them are quite similar to their English counterparts, so it is going to be easy.

• b represents /b/, as in banana

• c represents /k/ in the sequences ca, co, cu, and /θ1 ~ s/ in the sequences ce, ci2, as in caro, coche, cuchillo; cepillo, circo

• d represents /d/, as in dedo

• f represents /f/, as in farmacia

• g represents /g/ in the sequences ga, go, gu, and /x ~ h/ in the sequences ge, gi3, as in gato, gobierno, gula; genio, girar

• h is always* a silent letter in Spanish, as in English heir or honor

• j represents /x ~ h/, as in jefe

• k represents /k/ (but is rarely used), as in kilómetro

• l represents /l/, as in leche

• m represents /m/, as in mano

• n represents /n/, as in naranja

• ñ represents /ɲ/, as in España

• p represents /p/, as in pañuelo

• q represents /k/, only in the sequences que, qui (u is silent), as in querer, quinoa

• r represents /ɾ/, or /r/ at the beginning of a word, as in pero, ropa

• s represents /s/, as in salsa

• t represents /t/, as in tener

• v represents /b/ (for real), as in vaca

• w represents /w/ (or /b/ in some words), but is rarely used

• x represents /(k)s/, as in examen

• y represents /ʝ/ or /i/ when it means ‘and’ or at the end of a word, as in yo, y, rey

• z represents /θ ~ s/, as in zapato

We are missing a few combinations of letters necessary to represent all the Spanish sounds:

• ch represents /tʃ/, as in chorizo

• ll represents /ʝ/ (or /ʎ/ in 5-10% of Spanish speakers), as in llover

• rr represents /r/, as in perro

• qu represents /k/ (only used in the sequences que and qui; silent u), as in querer, quinoa

• gu represents /g/ (only used in the sequences gue and gui; silent u), as in guerra, guitarra

• gü represents /gu̯/ (only used in the sequences güe and güi; u is pronounced), as in vergüenza, pingüino

Common Reading Mistakes

You are just starting out, but you would be surprised by the amount of intermediate and even advanced students who keep making these basic reading mistakes.

Remember: ca, que, qui, co, cu; za, ce, ci, zo, zu; ga, gue, gui, go, gu; gua, güe, güi, guo (guu doesn’t exist).

Never pronounce the letter h (unless it’s combined in ch).

Never ever pronounce v as [v]. Believe me: Spanish does not have the phoneme /v/!

Spanish doesn’t have the phoneme /z/ either! Most Spaniards pronounce the letter z just as the English th in think (/θ/), but /s/ is also perfectly fine.

I know it is hard, but do try to distinguish between /ɾ/ and /r/: there’s a difference between pero ‘but’ and perro ‘dog’.

Also hard, but try to minimize the aspiration in stressed /p/, /t/, /k/: Paco, patata, coche…

Also, remember that the Spanish pure vowels are always simple vowels: there are no diphthongs in que or Rodrigo.

Of course, all this needs to be elaborated upon (there are specific pronunciation courses, and they take hours!), but for now it is more than enough.

This is a basic matter when we interact with other people, native or not. Even though Spaniards are quite lax about all of this, you might still come across as rude if you don’t behave according to what is expected.

Basic Vocabulary

Let’s begin by reviewing the basic vocabulary. Try not to obsess about understanding why we say this or that, or why we don’t say what you might expect. For the moment, you should just learn vocabulary as chunks.

This is also because this kind of words, sentences, etc., are quite idiomatic and don’t necessarily even make sense, strictly speaking. Just learn them by heart!

• hola — hello, hi

• buenas — hello, hi

• buenos días — good morning

• buenas tardes — good afternoon-evening

• buenas noches — goodnight

• ¿qué tal? — what’s up?

• ¿qué hay? — what’s up?

• ¿qué pasa? — what’s up?

• ¿cómo estás? — how are you doing?

• me llamo X — my name is X

• ¿cómo te llamas? — what’s your name?

• hasta luego — see you soon

• nos vemos — see you

• adiós — bye

Usage notes

Some of these words need some clarifications:

• buenas is more casual than hola

• buenos días and buenas tardes are separated by lunch time, which in Spain is between 14:00 and 15:30

• buenas noches is used mostly when you or somebody else is leaving, but you wouldn’t start a conversation with it

• me llamo X is the most idiomatic way to say your name; mi nombre es X sounds robotic…

• hasta luego is probably the most neutral way to say goodbye, even if you don’t plan to see that person ever again

• nos vemos is quite casual

• adiós might sound too formal

• hasta la vista is only used by Terminator (no, really, don’t say it: it sounds quite cringey)

Of course, there are many other formulas that natives use in their everyday life, but these are the most frequent and a great way to start.

Also, it is quite common to combine more than one of these:

¡Hola! ¿Qué tal?

Reacting to people’s introductions

Knowing how to react to people’s introductions is as important as introducing ourselves. If we fail this simple test, it is quite easy to feel embarrassed or awkward, even if the other person will probably understand your position and sympathize.

As a rule of thumb, the safest and easiest way to react to non-question formulas is to just repeat:

—¡Buenos días!
—¡Buenos días!

As simple as that.

The trickiest part is the questions. Take into account that most of the times these are not actual questions, but just politeness formulas. Natives don’t actually expect you to answer the questions in detail.

—¡Hola, buenos días! ¿Qué tal?
—Bien, bien, gracias. ¿Y tú?
—Muy bien, gracias.

(Just bien is always a good answer to all the questions, even when it wouldn’t make grammatical sense. If you want to emphasize, you can say muy bien. As an exception, you might prefer to answer something like nada, aquí estamos, todo bien to ¿qué pasa?)

Unless you know the person already or they do insist, don’t give any more details. Even if you had a terrible night, at first people don’t want to hear about it.

Until you calibrate your politeness, the safest way to go is to just be reactive to natives’ interactions. Don’t lead.

The basic mechanisms of the subject pronouns in Spanish are similar to those in English. To start off on the right foot, though, we need to fully understand what pronouns are and what the subject of a verb is.

What are Pronouns?

In plain English, pronouns are substitutes for nouns: they work instead of nouns. Imagine the following:

This is my friend Juan. Juan lives in Madrid.

Too many Juans. We would rather say:

This is my friend Juan. He lives in Madrid.

The pronoun he refers to Juan, but without repeating Juan.

In Spanish as well as in English, there are different types of pronouns. The most frequent ones are personal pronouns. And also personal pronouns are classified according to their function: subject, object, etc.

For example, in English we say He lives in Madrid (referring to Juan), but Do you know him? (also referring to Juan). Both pronouns refer to Juan, but one works as the subject of the sentence and the other as the object.

In this class, we are going to study the subject personal pronouns.

What is the Subject?

We don’t have to know all the details, so let’s make it simple. In English, the subject is what rotates with the auxiliary verb:

You are eating chocolate → Are you eating chocolate?

The most important thing we need to know about the subject is this: the subject always agrees with the verb in person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and number (singular, plural).

For example, in English we say: I am, you are, he is, etc. One changes, the other one changes too.

This is called concordancia (agreement) and it’s very important, even more in Spanish.

The Subject Personal Pronouns

Now we can learn the Spanish subject personal pronouns. Please notice that the following table represents the pronouns used in most of Spain, but different varieties of Spanish (Mexican, Colombian, Argentinian, even some varieties in Spain, etc.) can prefer other pronouns, mostly in the 2nd person plural.

• yo — I

• tú — you

• él — he

• ella — she

• nosotros — we (masculine)

• nosotras — we (feminine)

• vosotros — you (plural masculine)

• vosotras — you (plural feminine)

• ellos — they (masculine)

• ellas — they (feminine)

These are the most important pronouns and the ones you will be using most of the time.

There are also two other pronouns: usted (formal you singular) and ustedes (formal you plural). In most of Spain they are quite restricted to formal situations or when you are addressing people much older than you.

Even if they refer to you (2nd person), they require the verb to be in the 3rd person. You’ll see in the next class.

When to Use Subject Personal Pronouns in Spanish

English is a language that requires the subject to be present in every sentence. English uses subject pronouns by default.

In Spanish, this is quite different! By default, do not use the subject pronouns. Even if this should be easy (just don’t say anything), it tends to be rather hard at first.

Spanish just doesn’t need the subject pronouns because the verbal endings already tell what the subject is (thanks to the agreement!).

And yet they exist. This is because they are used. The question then is… When to use subject pronouns in Spanish, if we shouldn’t use them by default?

Mostly for emphasis and/or contrast:

—¡Te estoy esperando!
—¡Yo te estoy esperando!

—I’m waiting for you!
—I am waiting for you!

—Tú ve a casa y yo voy al supermercado.

—You go home, and I will go to the supermarket.

And that’s it for this lesson. All of this will be important for the next class, where we will start learning about verbs!

With a few questions you’ll be able to ask how to say something, what something means, how to pronounce a word, etc.

Questions to Solve Doubts

When you want to know how to say a word in Spanish, you can ask:

—¿Cómo se dice pocket?
—Pocket se dice bolsillo.

If you want to know how to say something more complex or delicate, ask:

—¿Cómo dirías I’m vegan, so I wouldn’t enjoy your barbeque party?
—Puedes decirle: «Como soy vegano, creo que no disfrutaría tu barbacoa».

If you want to know the meaning of a word in Spanish, you may ask:

—¿Qué quiere decir me aburro?
—Me aburro quiere decir I’m bored.

Another way to ask the same is this:

—¿Qué significa pizarra?
—Pizarra es/significa blackboard.

If what you want to know is the pronunciation of a word, say:

—¿Cómo se pronuncia esta palabra (pintxo)?
—Se pronuncia (como) pincho.

If you want the opposite, to know the spelling of a word, you can ask:

—¿Cómo se escribe gobierno? ¿Con b o con v?
—Con b.

—¿Ahorrar lleva hache?
—Sí, va con hache intercalada entre a y o.

—¿Jirafa va con j o con g?
—En español se escribe con j.

That’s it for now! Remember that not knowing is normal. Even Socrates knew nothing! As far as you’re willing to learn, not knowing at the beginning is perfectly fine.

Spanish verbs are conjugated, that is, the ending changes depending on the subject. In English, we say I eat, but He eats. In Spanish we say yo como y él come. That’s conjugating a verb.

The Infinitive

The first thing we have to know about verbs in Spanish is the infinitive. In English, the infinitive is the basic form with to, as in to be or not to be. In Spanish, we would say ser o no ser.

In English, the infinitive doesn’t have a specific ending, and each verb has its own form: to clean, to sink, to have, to google, to jeopardize…

In Spanish, however, every infinitive falls into one of three categories:

• primera conjugación: verbs in ‑ar, like amar or cantar

• segunda conjugación: verbs in ‑er, like comer or querer

• tercera conjugación: verbs in ‑ir, like dormir or reír

The infinitive is the basic form of a verb, and that’s what you will find in dictionaries. It is important to know the infinitive of a verb, because, depending on the conjugation, the endings of the present (and other tenses) may vary.

(You will find forms such as llamarse. What is that ‑se doing there?, you might wonder. It means it is a pronominal verb, i.e. it has a required pronoun, which in the infinitive is literally attached to the ending.)

The Regular Present Indicative

Just like any other language, Spanish has regular and irregular verbs. Now we are going to learn the regular conjugation of the present, i.e. its endings and regular patterns.

1st Conjugation (e.g. amar)

• yo canto

• tú cantas

• él, ella, usted canta

• nosotros, -as cantamos

• vosotros, -as cantáis

• ellos, -as, ustedes cantan

Remember: in Spanish we don’t say the subject most of the times, because the ending is already saying who the subject is! It is usually displayed merely for teaching purposes, but you should make the effort and get used to not saying it all the time.

2nd Conjugation (e.g. comer)

• como

• comes

• come

• comemos

• coméis

• comen

3rd Conjugation (e.g. vivir)

• vivo

• vives

• vive

• vivimos

• vivís

• viven

As you can see, there are many similarities among conjugations. Notice however that the third conjugation is the most variable!

That’s it for now. Most of the Spanish verbs have a regular present, but, as you might have guessed… many of the most frequent verbs happen to be irregular. Soon we’ll deal with them!