Conjugating regular verbs practice

Conjugating verbs is the best you can to learn them.

Start conjugating the regular ones and get use to their endings, depending on the conjugation they belong to (AR,ER,IR).

This is  a  little list to help you get started 😉

HABLAR ( TO TALK)

Él ………..

Nosoros ………….

Tú ………..

Yo …………..

Ella …………..

Vosotras ……………

Usted ……………..

Ellos …………………

PASEAR ( TO GO FOR A WALK)

Él ………..

Nosoros ………….

Tú ………..

Yo …………..

Ella …………..

Vosotras ……………

Usted ……………..

Ellos …………………

ORGANIZAR ( TO ORGANISE)

Él ………..

Nosoros ………….

Tú ………..

Yo …………..

Ella …………..

Vosotras ……………

Usted ……………..

Ellos …………………

ESCUCHAR ( TO LISTEN)

Él ………..

Nosoros ………….

Tú ………..

Yo …………..

Ella …………..

Vosotras ……………

Usted ……………..

Ellos …………………

APRENDER (TO LEARN)

Él ………..

Nosoros ………….

Tú ………..

Yo …………..

Ella …………..

Vosotras ……………

Usted ……………..

Ellos …………………

COMER (TO EAT)

Él ………..

Nosoros ………….

Tú ………..

Yo …………..

Ella …………..

Vosotras ……………

Usted ……………..

Ellos …………………

BARRER (TO SWEEP)

Él ………..

Nosoros ………….

Tú ………..

Yo …………..

Ella …………..

Vosotras ……………

Usted ……………..

Ellos …………………

VIVIR (TO LIVE)

Él ………..

Nosoros ………….

Tú ………..

Yo …………..

Ella …………..

Vosotras ……………

Usted ……………..

Ellos …………………

SUBIR (TO GO UP)

Él ………..

Nosoros ………….

Tú ………..

Yo …………..

Ella …………..

Vosotras ……………

Usted ……………..

Ellos …………………

ABRIR (TO OPEN)

Él ………..

Nosoros ………….

Tú ………..

Yo …………..

Ella …………..

Vosotras ……………

Usted ……………..

Ellos …………………

Why learn Spanish?

It is useful to have Spanish lessons for the following reasons:

  1. Spanish is often the foreign language of choice after English
  2. There are an estimated 548 million Spanish speakers as a first or second language, including speakers with limited competence and 20 million students of Spanish as a foreign language.
  3. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and it is used as an official language by the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Union of South American Nations, among many other international organizations. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language)
  4. Learn spanish to prepare for study abroad
  5. Learn spanish for business opportunities

Personal pronouns.

Some of my older students find it hard to understand technical grammar terms so, in those cases, I think it’s better to leave them a side as they will just get them confused.

So, if you need to learn personal pronouns, but you don’t know what pronouns are,  then… don’t worry and  simply learn them! Don’t let the terminology to put you off learning the language.

 

I————- YO

YOU ——- TÚ

HE———- ÉL

SHE ——- ELLA

WE ——– NOSOTROS/NOSOTRAS

YOU —— VOSOTROS/VOSOTRAS

THEY —– ELLOS /ELLAS

Singular and plural practice

Rewrite these sentences  from singular to plural or the other way round. Pay attention to the subject of the sentence, it might be female or male  and you’ll need to find the correct one.

Yo soy español.

Yo no soy inglés, yo soy chileno.

Nosotros somos muy listos. Nosotros somos pilotos.

Nosotras estamos muy contentas por que nosotras estamos en la playa.

Tú eres norteamericano. Tú no eres español.

Vosotras sóis amas de casa. Vosotras estáis muy cansadas.

Ella es profesora de francés y ella es muy guapa.

Él está en su casa. Él está muy cansado.

Ellos están en el campo de fútbol. Ellos están alegres.

Ellas son Maria y Marta. Ellas son hermanas de Juan.

Imperative mood, part 1

The Imperative  is one of the moods you might find hard to use when learning Spanish as it doesn’t always have the same  used as in English. I would advice you not to try to translate literally the sentences where you might find it as the meaning might sound a “bite” rude to you as an English speaker but, believe me, its meaning is not as hard as it may sound, it is softener.

The imperative mood is used to give orders, commands and makes requests.

To conjugate it you will need to know some other tenses such as the Simple Present of Indicative and Subjunctive, and it conjugates on the following persons only: tú, él, ella, usted, nosotros, vosotros, ellos, ellas, ustedes.

I´m going to write the reference to these two tenses so that you can check the information that will follow in this post.

Simple Present-Indicative

Yo
hablo
como
parto
hablas
comes
partes
Él, ella, ustedes
habla
come
parte
Nosotros
hablamos
comemos
partimos
Vosotros
habláis
coméis
partís
Ellos, ellas, ustedes
hablan
comen
parten

Simple Present-Subjunctive 

Yo
hable
coma
parta
hables
comas
partas
Él, ella, ustedes
hable
coma
parta
Nosotros
hablemos
comamos
partamos
Vosotros
habléis
comáis
partáis
Ellos, ellas, ustedes
hablen
coman
partan

Affirmative form: You’ll need to use the 3er person singular – Simple Present Indicative

Example: habla, come, parte.

Negative form:You’ll need to use the 2er person singular – Simple Present Subjunctive.

Example: no hables, no comas, no partas.

ÉL, ELLA, USTED

Afirmative / Negative  form: You’ll need to use the 3er person singular – Simple Present Subjunctive

Examples: hable, , coma, parta / no hable, no coma, no parte.  

NOSOTROS

Affirmative / Negative  form: You’ll need to use the 3er person plural – Simple Present Subjunctive.

Examples: Hablemos, comamos, partamos / no hablemos, no comamos, no partamos.

VOSOTROS

Affirmative form: You’ll need to use the infinitive of the verb this time and change the -r for a -d.

Example: hablar-hablad, comer-comed, partir-partid.

Negative form:You’ll need to use the 2er person plural – Simple Present Subjunctive.

Examples: no hablés, no comáis, no partáis.

ELLOS, ELLAS, USTEDES

Affirmative / Negative  form: You’ll need to use the 3er person plural – Simple Present Subjunctive.

Example: Hablen-no hable, coman-no coman, partan-no partan.

All sentences intended to give orders to a third person (él, ella, ellos, ellas) will be introduce by “que”.

Exemples: Que no hablen con nadie. Que los niños coman antes de las 2. Que tu madre no parta la tarta de cumpleaños.

 

IRREGULAR VERBS

These is a list of the most common irregular verbs and their irregularities apply only for some of their forms:

Decir-Di

Hacer-Haz

Ir-Ves

Poner-Pon

Salir-Sal

Ser – Sé

Tener- Ten

Venir – Ven

These irregular verbs on the “Tú” form are only irregular in its affirmative form, they become regular for its negative form:

di – no digas, haz – no hagas, ves – no vayas, pon – no pongas, sal – no salgas, sé – no seas, ten – no tengas, ven – no vengas

Usted

Dar- dé

Estar- esté

Saber – sepa

Ser – sea

Ir – vaya

 Ustedes

Dar- dén

Estar- estén

Saber – sepan

Ser – sean

Ir – vayan

 

Improve your listening!

Learning Spanish can be very challenging at times  and, for many of you, getting the opportunity to develop your listening might seem very complicated and frustrating. DON’T WORRY!  IT’S COMPLETELY NORMAL!

From my own experience learning languages, the best advice I can give you it’s:

Face the challenge , give it time and be patient because slowly, slowly you will be able to achieve all what you wanted.

Nowadays we have so many resources online it would be a pity no to take advance of them.  A good option for practicing your listening it would be to check  

www.rtve.es

You’ll find there lots of interesting programs.

Just enter  the site  and click on “a la carta” (on the left hand side of the screen) where  you’ll get the option of watching live channels “TV en directo” or recorded programs.

If you don’t have much time I recommend  you to watch the morning news every day. The program is about  25 minutes long and they talk a little about everything so it might be easier to know what they are talking about.

To get to the news, just go to “Categorias” and click on “Informativos” choose “Telediario”, you’ll get to the full list of news available from the last days.

Listening to the news was a good option for me to learn English, I’m almost sure it will work for you as well if you want to improve your Spanish. Good luck! 🙂

 

 

Tú, vosotros/ usted,ustedes

Sometimes you might feel  confused using the formal and informal “you” forms, tú/vosotros and usted/ustedes. On this exercise you can practice changing the verbs ser and estar in simple present from the informal you to the formal one.

Don´t forget that the formal form for “usted”  or “ustedes”  it has a  2 person  meaning but we conjugated as a 3rd person.

Write these sentences changing the “tú” “vosotros” form for the “usted” “ustedes” form:

Tú eres muy inteligente.

Tú eres la hermana de Sandra.

Tú no eres mi vecino, tú eres mi amigo.

¿Eres tú Andrés?

¿Eres el señor Manolo?

Tú estás en casa.

Tú estás enfermo. 

Tú estás casado con mi hermana.

¿Estás casado o estás divorciado?

Tú no estás contento por que tú estás en el médico.

¿Donde estás? ¿estás en el supermercado?

Vosotros sois muy inteligentes.

Vosotros sois los hermanos de Pedro.

Vosotros no sois mis vecinos, vosotros sois mis amigos.

¿Sois vosotros Juan y Manuel?

Vosotros no estáis en el banco.

Vosotros estáis en la escuela.

Vosotros no estáis enfermos.

Grammatical terms

Before you start to learn Spanish grammar you ,need to familiarise yourself with some grammatical terms.

Look at this sentence:

The boy reads an interesting book at home.

He reads an interesting book at home.

Each word has a grammatical term :

The – definitive article

boy – noun (it is the subject of the sentence)

reads – verb

a – preposition

interesting – adjective

book – noun (it is a direct object in the sentence)

at – preposition

home – noun.

He – pronoum

Articles always go in front of the noun and agrees with it in gender and number. Grammatical name given to the word “THE”.

In many circumstances where the definite article is necessary in Spanish , it is omitted in English.

Las mujeres están en el partido – Women are present in the party.

Using Spanish articles will take practise , since quite a few situations require their use in Spanish but not in English.

Nouns designate people, places, actions, things, events and concrete or abstract ideas, and so on. Example: Tom, boy, London, chair, cat…

In Spanish nouns are either feminine or masculine, grammatically speaking. Sometimes this classification will not make sense to the English-speaking learner of Spanish.

A verb is a word that describes an action ( example: eats, slept, is going).

An adjetive can have two functions:

It can complement the noun it follows , completing its meaning with various characteristics and qualities.

Example: Don’t you want that big , inexpensive bag?

The can also limit or determine a noun.

Example: My watch is not working. / This rose has a strong fragance.

Adjectives must agree in gender and number with the noun. Therefore djetives are either feminine or masculine, singular or plural, acording to the noun they modify.

A Preposition is a connector. It links a noun, a pronoun, or a phrase to other words in a phrase or sentence.

Example: They work for me. / They are travelling through Spain.

Spanish prepositions can present a challenge to English speakers .You will need to acquire them gradually.

A pronoun is a word that stands in place of a noun.

Example: I, you, he , she…..

A conjunction is a word that links parts of a sentence . The most common conjunctions in English are “and” and “but”.

The subject is the name given to the person or things doing the action.

Relative pronoun is a word that links one part of the sentence to another. In English the relative pronouns are “ who”, “whom”, “which”, “where” and “that”

Example: I gave him all the money that I earned.

Eurocopa 2012

It is the Europe Cup 2012  and from Manchester we are supporting the Spanish team, although we are also keeping an eye on the English team and we hope they do  well.  We are Spanish – United if that makes any sense.

Vamos España!