When it comes to learning Spanish, or any language for that matter, it’s all about repetition just as if you were learning to play a musical instrument or improve your backhand in tennis - the more you do it, the better you’ll become. It’s all a matter of muscle memory, in this case the muscle being your brain.

A good way to memorize a new word or verb or new phrase is to use it and use it often. I remember when I started learning Spanish, everything I learned, I would immediately put it to use — even if that meant talking to myself or to the wall.

Other helpful tips to memorize vocabulary is to add post-it notes on various objects and things in your house. This way every time you see it, you’ll also see the Spanish translation of it. I did this to memorize things in my bedroom, like the t.v., the window, the door, the desk, etc. And it worked.

The point is this — studying a language involves layers, and to effectively move on to the next layer, you have to have been able to utilize the prior layer well. So it’s very important to learn what you learn quickly, but efficiently. And that’s why it’s all about repetition.

If you get stuck on a word or phrase or verb conjugation, write it down and then try writing it over and over again 20 times and each time say it outloud. Repetition!

Okay, it’s time to start forming sentences in Spanish!

In Spanish, when describing nouns (people, places and things) - the inherent characteristics of them - we use the verb Ser, which means “to be.” (** Note that in Spanish, there are two verbs that mean “to be,” something we will get into later.)

The Verb Ser is used for different purposes and one of them is for description.

For example:

Jane is nice, sociable and optimistic.
China is a communist country.
My dog is a German Shepard.

These are all descriptions.

In the previous lesson, you learned the Spanish subject pronouns. So now we are going to learn how to conjugate the verb Ser to correspond with each Spanish subject pronoun.

Conjugating the verb Ser:
Yo soy (I am)
Tú eres (You are)
Él/Ella/Usted es (He is/She is/You are)
Nosotros somos (We are)
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes son (They are/You all are)

When you want to ask someone in Spanish what someone, something or some place is like, you say the following:

¿Cómo + conjugated form of Ser?

And to answer the question of what someone is like, you reply with the same conjugated form of the verb + an adjective(s).
For example:

¿Cómo es Linda? (What is Linda like?)
Linda (Ella) es bonita y inteligente. (Linda (She) is pretty and intelligent.)

So there you go. You now know how to ask someone what someone , something or some place is like, and how to answer such questions.

** Note: to negate a sentence, just add “no” in front of the conjugated verb. (No eres inteligente - You are not intelligent).

To practice, do the following:

Make a list of your family members and closest friends, and include yourself. Now describe them in Spanish. Then describe the city you live in.

Start making a list of Spanish adjectives this way. Hopefully you have already purchased a Spanish dictionary!

For example:

Yo soy muy sociable. (I am very sociable.)
Ann Arbor no es grande. (Ann Arbor isn’t big.)

Some Spanish adjectives to get you started:

grande (big)
pequeño/a (small)
alto/a (tall)
bajo/a (short)
inteligente (intelligent)
sociable (sociable)
divertido/a (fun)
culto/a (educated)
optimista (optimist)
amable (nice)
hermoso/a (beautiful)
gordo/a (fat, chubby)
flaco/a (skinny)
delgado/a (slender)

We’re slowly now going to start discussing Spanish grammar. Now, vital to every communication is knowing the subject (or noun) of whatever is being said or written, right? Are we talking about Mexico or Jane from the apartment below or iPods? These are all examples of nouns - person, place or thing. But most of the time we use subject pronouns to replace the noun. For example, if you and Jane are having a conversation, it would be foolish to always refer to her as Jane. For this reason, when talking to someone, we generally substitute the person’s name with “you.” This is a subject pronoun.

In English, the subject pronouns are: I, You, He/She/It, We, You (plural) and They.

Spanish also has subject pronouns:

Yo (I)
Tú (you - singular, informal)
Usted (you - singular, formal)
Él (he/it)
Ella (she/it)
Nosotros/Nosotras (We)
Vosotros/Vosotras (You - plural, informal; only used in Spain)
Ustedes (You - plural, formal; used everywhere outside of Spain)
Ellos/Ellas (They)

A couple of notes:

Tú vs. Usted

Tú is informal, and is to be used when referring to someone that you know or is younger than you. Whereas Usted is formal, and is to be used when referring to someone that you don’t know or someone that is older than you, as a way to pay respect.

Although you should keep this distinction in mind and try to abide by the customary uses of Tú and Usted, don’t fret if you always resort to using Tú. No one is going to yell at you!

Vosotros/Vosotras

Because Vosotros is used only in Spain, for purposes of this blog, I’m not going to focus on it, rather when referring to you in the plural form, I will use Ustedes only because 1) People in Spain will understand Usted; and 2) Ustedes is more commonly used because, as I mentioned, Vosotros is only used in Spain, whereas Ustedes is used everywhere else.

But in my Spanish Grammar section, I include Vosotros in the lessons there.

Gender

In Spanish every noun is either masculine or femine. Therefore, when referring to groups of people like Nosotros (We), Vosotros (You all) and Ellos (They), you have to pay attention to gender.

If they entire group is of all males or a mix of males and females (even 1 male and 100 females) then you use Nosotros, Vosotros, and Ellos. You only use Nosotras, Vosotras and Ellas when the entire group is comprised of females.

Now that you’ve developed good Spanish-alphabet pronunciation skills and feel confident in reciting the Spanish alphabet, it’s time to move on to speaking Spanish. At this point, it would logically seem like you should start learning Spanish grammar – but I advise against that. Learning a language is like learning anything else that is new and exciting. If you lose motivation, you’ll lose interest.

Don’t forget that as children we naturally learn to speak our native language first and then we attend school and learn all the grammar rules. This is no different.It’s safe to say that most people learning Spanish are doing so to be able to speak it. That’s the fun part – being able to orally communicate with others. So instead of getting into the heavy stuff like Spanish grammar, we’re going to start off by learning how to meet and greet others in Spanish.Note that in Spanish there is a formal way of addressing “you” and an informal way. We’re going to focus on the informal way for now.

We’re not going to start worrying about why this or why that in terms of Spanish grammar. For now we don’t need to know anything about Spanish grammar. What I want you to do is simply memorize these phrases and practice using them. Know these phrases inside and out and become comfortable. Trust me, once we get into Spanish grammar, everything will come together and you’ll say, just as I once did, “Ahhhh, now I see why this is like that! Makes total sense!”

Note: when you see “a/” it means that you subsitute the “o” with an “a” when it’s a female speaking. Gender plays a role in the Spanish language.

Hola (Hi, hello)
Buenos días (Good morning)
Buenas tardes (Good afternoon/evening – use this from 11am – 7pm)
Buenas noches (Good evening/night)
¿Cómo estás tú? (How are you?)
Me llamo Nancy (My name is Nancy)
Mucho gusto (Nice to meet you)
¿Cómo te llamas? (What’s your name?)
¡Estoy excelente! (I’m excellent!)
¡Estoy maravilloso/a! (I’m wonderful)
Estoy contento/a (I’m happy)
Estoy bien (I’m okay, I’m fine)
No estoy bien (I’m not okay, I’m not fine)
Estoy malo/a (I’m doing bad)
Estoy así así (I’m so-so)
Estoy triste (I’m sad)
Adiós (bye)
Chau (bye)
Nos vemos (See you around, until we see each other again)
Nos hablamos (We’ll talk soon)
Hasta pronto (See you soon)
Hasta luego (See you later)
Hasta mañana (See you tomorrow)
So there you go, now you are ready to meet and greet any Spanish-speaker! To listen to some audio pronunciation of some of these phrases and to learn more of them, visit Spanish Meeting People Phrases.

Technorati Tags: spanish, spanish alphabet, speak spanish, spanish grammar, spanish phrases

I wanted to make a quick note about the verb Saber, which means to know, but to know in terms of knowing information or knowing how to do something — as opposed to the verb Conocer, which means to know also, but in terms of being familiar with a place, or knowing a person, or meeting a person (Yo conocí a mi novia en 2004 - I met my girlfriend in 2004).Regarding Saber, when an infinitive follows it, it turns the meaning into “know how to ___.” Essentially, you don’t need to add “cómo” to the sentence to say “how.” For example:

Yo sé jugar al tenis muy bien. I know how to play tennis very well.
Nosotros sabemos hablar español. We know how to speak Spanish.

A common MISTAKE that I see frequently is the use of cómo between the two verbs (saber + infinitive), like this — Yo sé cómo jugar al tenis. This is INCORRECT.

Here is the rule:

Saber + infinitive = to know how to do something

But don’t get me wrong, you can attach “cómo” after Saber, but for a different purpose. For example:

¡No sé cómo tú comiste el plato todo! I don’t know how you ate the whole plate!

Technorati Tags: spanish verbs, saber, conocer

The verb “to be” can be expressed two different ways - Estar and Ser. And when it comes to location, the general rule is to use Estar. However, a common mistake many of us make is using Estar to describe the location of an event. This is a mistake. The location of an event is always described with Ser. For example:

La boda es en la iglesia. The wedding is in the church.

La reunion será en Chicago. The meeting will be in Chicago.

Remember, for the location of places, use Estar. ¿Dónde está tu casa? Where is your house? La universitad está norte de la ciudad. The university is north of the city.

But for events - use Ser!

Technorati Tags: spanish, spanish verbs, ser, estar

Many foreign language students make the mistake of rushing into a new language. Well, I can’t blame them. It’s exciting to learn a new language. However, there’s no point to learning a new language if no one is going to understand you. In some languages, just being slightly off can change the meaning of what you want to say. For example, with Chinese, a language spoken in four tones. But even if you’re studying a straightforward language like Spanish, which has one and only one way to pronounce each letter (unlike English!) you still want to be able to pronounce well and sounds as close as possible to a native speaker. Not only does it make the communication process much easier, but it builds confidence when others are complementing you on your pronunciation skills. You’ll feel more native and have more motivation to keep going.

There’s nothing worse than putting in a lot of hard work studying a language – and it’s hard work – and being asked to repeat what you’re trying to say. Maybe I would be able to understand others, but then again, maybe I wouldn’t have been able to. We tend to become accustomed to the sounds that we hear and so, if we are continuously pronouncing a word incorrectly, we’re only going to become used to that sound and when we hear it pronounced correctly, it may come across wrong.

So, I definitely recommend learning how to pronounce words correctly, as close to as native as possible! Spanish pronunciation is not that difficult except for the famous rolling “r” sound.

Click here to review Spanish pronunciation.

So, your first lesson is to review the Spanish alphabet and learn how to pronounce each letter correctly. The key is repetition. When I started learning Spanish, I made this my priority. Start slow through the alphabet and try to pronounce each letter correctly, then as you get better, speed up!

But don’t worry, this takes time and if you keep at it, and you really focus on your Spanish pronunciation, you will get it and you’ll feel great when you get compliments from native Spanish speakers telling you how well you speak. Trust me, it feels great!

Technorati Tags: spanish, learning spanish, spanish pronunciation

Visit the main site, www.outerspanish.com to review more Spanish grammar, learn vocabulary, and develop your listening skills and take practice exams.