Spanish
Why learn Spanish?
Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world, the native tongue of over 550 million people. It is a fairly simple language to learn for an English speaker as compared to other Romance languages.
Where is Spanish spoken?
Spanish is primarily spoken in Spain and the Latin American countries such as Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Argentina, Colombia and more. It is also spoken in Equatorial Guinea, Gibraltar and Andorra.
What will you learn in this lesson?
In this lesson you will learn the entire grammar of Spanish as well some vocabulary. The entire process will be complete in 12 steps described in 12 sections.
Useful tools
Spanish
Checker
Wikipedia
Spanish
Dictionary
DeepL
Pronunciation
Spanish pronunciation is almost entirely phonetic. Most letters are pronounced the same way in every word.
https://www.tellmeinspanish.com/learning/spanish-alphabet/
Here is a table of Spanish pronunciation with comparisons made to English.
As you can see the sounds made by C, G and X are the only ones that vary by word. Below are some rules that will help you remember how to pronounce each.
Before A, O and U - C is always pronounced as /k/. Before E and I - C is pronounced as either /s/ or /θ/ (English TH) depending on the dialect.
Before A, O and U - G is always pronounced as /g/. Before E and I - G is always pronounced as a soft /h/.
X is always pronounced as /ks/ in everyday words. Only words of Native American origin have it pronounced as /x/ or /h/ sounds. The Native American words notably include Mexico and Texas.
Some Spanish clusters also have unique pronunciation rules:
In clusters such as gui or gue - the letter U is not pronounced.
CH clusters are pronounced as /tʃ/ (English CH sound).
LL clusters are pronounced as /j/.
The letter Ñ is a Spanish addition to the Latin alphabet. It makes the English nye sound.
Spanish also has accents marked on top of vowels. They indicate stress on the syllable that the vowel is part of.
E.g. país is pronounced pah-EES.
Nouns
Each Spanish noun possesses a unique grammatical gender. Nouns can be either feminine or masculine. Those that are feminine usually end in -a while those that end in -o are usually masculine. There are a lot of exceptions to those "rules" that have to be learned. Here you can see a table of the various rules related to gender in Spanish.
Pluralization:
Pluralizing nouns is very easy. You simply add -s if the noun ends in a vowel or -es if it ends in a consonant (e.g. mapa -> mapas, edad -> edades).
Articles
Spanish has four indefinite articles and four definite articles. Here you can see a table.
What article you use depends on the gender and number of the word that it describes.
Pronouns
Subject pronouns are used similarly to English. The main difference is that Spanish distinguishes between a polite and impolite form of you.
Direct object pronouns describe the object that directly receives the action of the verb.
Indirect object pronouns describe the object that something is being done to or for. They are placed at the beginning of a sentence.
Le doy el libro a Juan. → I give the book to Juan.
(literally him [me] give the book)
Possessive pronouns are distinguished from possessive adjectives just like in English (my vs mine).
Reflexive pronouns are similar to the indirect object pronouns. One more pronoun exists that is not visible on the table above - that is sí - which means oneself.
The distinction between the object pronouns is very important. Direct objects are those that receive the action directly (I see her), while indirect are those that an action is being done to or for (I gave it to him).
Verbs
Verbs in Spanish are conjugated according to tense, number, person, mood and aspect. Fortunately all of those are accounted for in a single suffix added to a verb, as long as it is regular.
Generally Spanish has irregular verbs and three types of regular verbs - those with infinitives ending in -ir, -er, -ar. The irregular verbs must be learned and are impossible to predict, while all three types of regular verbs can be summed up in one chart that you can see below (you can drag the image and scroll or use two fingers to resize it).
https://www.reddit.com/r/learnspanish/comments/13h2ss9/spanish_verb_tenses_chart/
Every though the chart above is very large, you do not actually have to use every single tense or form. The subjunctive moods and aspects are often omitted or replaced by other forms, however it would be beneficial to learn those forms as well, especially if you want to sound like a native speaker.
Adjectives
Most Spanish adjectives have to agree with nouns in number and gender. Those ending in -e only have to agree in number. Adjectives that end in a consonant often also do not have to agree in gender, though there are multiple exceptions such as demonyms. To pluralize an adjective, add -s if it ends in a vowel, or -es if it ends in a consonant.
Adjectives are placed after the word they describe.
The stages of comparison are mostly expressed through auxiliaries such as más or menos.
Adverbs
Adverbs in Spanish are mostly irregular. They are placed after the word they describe. Many adverbs derived from adjectives end in -mente. There is a rule that applies to those adverbs: if they are placed next to each other, then only the last one takes the -mente suffix, as shown below.
lenta y cuidadosamente
(lit. slowly and carefully)
If they were used separately in different phrases, lenta would've been lentamente.
Numerals
Spanish numerals follow limited rules that should be memorized to use them effectively.
Here is a breakdown of the structure of a larger number (2055):
dos mil cincuenta y cinco
(lit. two thousand fifty and five)
1-15 = unique words
16-19 = combined words (dieci + digit), often with added accents
20 = unique word
21-29 = combined words (veinti + digit), often with added accents
30, 40, 50, 60... = unique words
31, 32, 46, 84... = digits combined with y (ten y digit)
100, 1000, 10.000... = unique words
Ordinal numerals have to agree with the noun they describe in both gender and number. This is done by modifying their endings: -o for masculine, -a for feminine, and -os/-as for the plural of each.
The ordinals themselves are difficult to predict. Between 1 and 10 they are completely unique words. All following tens, hundreds, millions etc. are also unique. Ordinals like 11th or 35th can be formed by combining the ordinal of the tens place with the ordinal of the last digit (e.g., 11th = décimo primero).
Forming a sentence
I eat apples.
Yo como manzanas.
She studies Spanish.
Ella estudia español.
We live in Madrid.
Nosotros vivimos en Madrid.
Spanish primarily uses subject-verb-object word order, just like English.
The red car
El coche rojo
The red cars
Los coches rojos
Adjectives and adverbs are placed after the words they describe.
In the remaining sections you will learn how to negate phrases and form questions.
Negation
Phrases or words in Spanish are negated using the adverb no, which has the function of English's no and not. The word is always placed before the verb in a sentence.
Double negation is a standard feature of the language. Words like nothing or no one are negated separately, despite the fact that they already express the negation of something. You can see an example below.
No veo a nadie.
(lit. Can't see no one.)
The above sentence really means I can see no one, but due to double negation it's expressed as I can't see no one.
Questions
There are two types of questions that you can use in Spanish - yes/no questions and information questions. Before learning about the questions, remember that Spanish uses two types of question marks - the standard question mark (?) - placed at the end of a question, and the inverted question mark (¿) - placed at the beginning of a question.
Tú comes manzanas.
¿Comes tú manzanas?
Yes/no questions are formed by inverting the pronoun and verb of the affirmative sentence. Here is an example with the affirmative "You eat apples." and the question "Do you eat apples?".
https://www.amazon.com/ABCBY-Language-QUESTION-Classroom-08x12inch/dp/B0D6ZCZ6C8
For information questions, Spanish has a set of question words. The syntax of these questions is very similar to English.
The second-person form of any verb can be used to ask do questions, i.e. "Do you hate apples?". The first three words of that question would only be one in the Spanish translation, which is "¿Odias las manzanas?" - literally meaning "You hate the apples?".
Finished 26/10/25.