Take the Mystery Out of Learning Spanish: The WHY Behind the Language

1. Introduction: Hi, this is Michelle West with Aprosae. For your class Take the mystery out of learning Spanish The why behind the language. If you're beginning to brush up on your Spanish skills, or maybe you're a beginner at learning Spanish This class will teach you things about Spanish that will help you make sense out of what you're studying. And the great thing is you don't need any previous experience to take this class. Some Spanish instructional programs are great, asking you to repeat vocabulary words in sentences but don't explain why the language works the way it does. Once you understand some of these patterns in Spanish, you can see a phrase or sentence and have a better understanding of what's being said. This speeds up your learning time and gives you an increased ability to create sentences on your own. While the Spanish speakers in my family speak Latin American Spanish. I took Castilian, Spain, Spanish from seventh to 12th grades, and have 16 college credits in it. From there, I started a business developing curriculum for and taught Spanish programs to two-year-olds to adults. From this experience and training, I've seen that the more someone understands why words change from one context to another, the more engaged the students are and the quicker they're able to learn because they can understand the patterns that make up the language. That's why I wanted to share what I've learned with you. I've picked some of the basic concepts in Spanish that help the most in acquisition and retention of a foreign language when you're first learning. In this class, we're going to cover the following topics.: Punctuation and how it cues you when reading, cognates and how they can make learning Spanish easier. Diminutives and why they're used. Pronunciation and how to sound more like a native speaker. Adjectives and how their placement makes sense. Number, which is singular and plural, and why it's important. And gender, which is masculine and feminine and what the subtleties tell you. In Lesson five, covering pronunciation There's a pronunciation guide and an associated worksheet in the projects tab of this class. So you can put what's covered in that lesson into practice. The worksheet will lead you through how to pronounce any word in Spanish, more like a native speaker, solidifying what you've learned and can serve as a reference for when you start reading, writing, and speaking Spanish. I'm looking forward to seeing your worksheet posted to this class and/ or getting any questions or feedback you have about what you've learned. By the end of this class, you should have a greater understanding of some critical and basic aspects of the Spanish language that will make it easier to learn. So let's get started with the first topic, how punctuation differs in Spanish and how those differences can help you. 2. Punctuation: If you've ever read Spanish and wondered why in the world is that exclamation mark or question mark upside down, You're going to see the value in it after this lesson. If you remember from English classes an exclamatory sentences is one that has an exclamation mark at the end, and it's exclaiming something. An interrogative sentence is one that has a question mark at the end, and it's asking a question. And a declarative sentence. It's one that has a period at the end. Spanish uses all these punctuations as well. Let's take an example. Where is my baby? ¿dónde está mi bebé? is the Spanish translation. In English we have where is my baby Question mark. In Spanish, we have upside down question mark, ¿dónde está mi bebé, Right-side up question mark. Why the difference? It's because in the Spanish language, punctuation like a question mark and an exclamation mark, are going to be upside down at the beginning of a sentence and then they're going to be right-side up like they are in English at the end of the sentence. Now, if you're like me, I like to understand the logic behind something. I think Spanish is better in this instance, than how it's done in English. Because when I'm reading a paragraph in Spanish and I see an upside down question mark or an upside down exclamation mark I know what I'm about to read. Am I the only one who in English class was reading out loud and read something like Mary ran out of the way in a monotone voice only to see that darn exclamation mark at the end of the sentence? Realizing, I should have said, Mary ran out of the way! And the same thing has happened with question marks. And you don't have that problem in Spanish. When you're reading a paragraph out loud in Spanish, you know, upside-down exclamation mark, ¡Aquí está mi bebé! I need to exclaim this with an alarming tone in my voice. Or upside down question mark, ¿dónde está mi bebé? I need to ask this with a questioning tone in my voice. I think it's pretty cool. It gives you a heads up. Now, if you're wondering about periods, periods are not at the beginning of a sentence and at the end. They're only at the end. So you can just take it for granted that if there's no upside down question mark or upside down exclamation mark at the beginning of a sentence It's going to be a statement or a declarative sentence. That's the quick and dirty about punctuation. Now, let's move on to what cognates are and how they can make your learning of Spanish easier. 3. Cognates: So what is a cognate? A cognate is a word that exists in two different languages that has the same root or origin. They're going to send alike. Here are some examples of animal cognates and let's see if you can guess what the English translation is of each Spanish word. León. Yep. That would be Lion. Tigre. That would be Tiger. Canguro. Kangaroo. Cognates are great for first-time learners, especially because learning a foreign language can be intimidating. But cognates allow you to acquire and retain all kinds of vocabulary in a very short amount of time. As a result, cognates break down the barrier you might feel when you're learning a new language, like Spanish. Let's say your goal is to order exclusively in Spanish from the Mexican restaurant you frequent every week. It could help to focus on cognates first, because we humans tend to stick with learning longer when we experience success. And learning words that are easy at first brings you success quicker than learning words that are challenging to remember and pronounce. For this instance, I would suggest doing an online search for English Spanish cognates for food. See which foods you'd likely use when ordering at the Mexican restaurant and practice those words first. A huge word of caution when studying cognates though., There's this very real thing called false cognates. It's basically when a Spanish word looks like an English word but it is not a cognate. So please look up the word before assuming it's a true cognate. Here are some examples of false cognates. Let's see if you can guess what the English translation is of the Spanish word Embarazada. Maybe you thought embarrassed? Nope. It means pregnant. I'm sure that one's gotten some people in trouble. Another one is éxito. Most would guess exit. It means success. And here's the last one. Constipado. This one usually means a sinus and nasal congestion from an upper respiratory infection or a cold, though it could mean constipated. So it's helpful to know that the person might not have a case of TMI, too much information, they might just have a cold. You can see how some of these false cognates can cause miscommunication and some giggles. That's why translating the word to make sure it's a true cognate and not a false cognate is helpful. And that's the short and sweet about cognates. Now, let's take a look at diminutives, what they are and why you'd use them. 4. Diminutives: Diminutives are words that have an added suffix that changes the meaning of the word in a small way. For example, the Spanish word for grandfather is abuelo. A diminutive for grandfather would be abuelito. The suffix of ITO replaces the letter O at the end of the word, and this indicates smallness or affection. So if you were to see your grandpa went up to hug him and said, oh abuelito, instead of abuelo, that would be a more tender embrace. Another example is, let's say you live in a tiny house. You would say casita instead of casa. Or if you wanted to say, Wait a minute, or Wait a moment. You would say espera un momento. But if you're almost done with something and you want to say wait a little moment. You'd say espera un momentito. It's similar to English in that one might say, Oh, look at the doggie, instead of look at the dog. Basically speaking, anytime you see a noun that has the last letter, usually o or a, replaced by ITO or ITA, It's likely a diminutive. Here are the examples we covered. Abuelo for grandfather, or abuelito for grandpa. And by the way, the same would be for abuela, for grandmother. Or abuelita for grandma. Casa for house, or casita for a little house or cottage. Momento for moment, or momentito for little moment, which, you know now is a cognate. These are just a few examples of diminutives. You can use them when you're reading, writing, or speaking Spanish to add a nuance that communicates either smallness or affection. And that's it for diminutives. Next up is how to pronounce Spanish more like a native speaker. 5. Pronunciation: If you want to sound more like a native speaker, I have a pronunciation guide you can download in the class project tab of this class. The pronunciation guide will tell you how each letter or combination of letters is pronounced in Spanish. But first, a huge disclaimer to remember when using this guide. Just like British and American English can have different pronunciations of the same word You might hear Spanish word being pronounced differently in Spain than in Mexico. So this pronunciation guide is a guide, not an exhaustive treatment of how each country pronounces each and every sound. You can use the pronunciation guide to study as a first-time learner, or to brush up on the sounds of Spanish if you're returning to Spanish after a long break. Now, that pronunciation guide is pretty long, but you don't have to worry about all those sounds. It's just a comprehensive guide. What we're going to do in this lesson is go over all the sounds that I think are really important for anyone to memorize. And once you have those hand-picked sounds, you will eliminate the vast majority of noticeable pronunciation mistakes. And the number of sounds we're going to go over is only ten. So this is really doable. There are three main categories that these sounds are in. The first one is vowels. Luckily, the same vowels we have in English are in Spanish, a, e, i, o, and u. A is pronounced a(h) in calm. E, well, here we have a difference depending on where people are from. In some parts of the Spanish-speaking world, it's pronounced a(y) as in day. Other places, I would say mostly Latin America, so the majority of most places that folks in the United States or Canada might be around, are going to say e(h) as in mess. So either way is fine. If you live in North America, I'd suggest choosing e(h) as in mess. I is pronounced ee as in fee. O is pronounced o(h) as in so. And U is pronounced oo in too. The second category are unique letters in the Spanish alphabet. And depending on who you ask, they aren't letters. Some people who learned Spanish awhile back, may have had these letters in their Spanish alphabet. But currently in the Spanish alphabet, Most people would say there are only 27 letters. The three letters I want to go over are the double L, elle, That's what the letter is called. erre, That's the trilled r, erre, that is a double R. And then the third one is one that is still in the Spanish alphabet, and that's the eñe. It's the N with the tilde on top of it. The elle is a double L and it's pronounced like a y. Let's take the word chicken, pollo. It's not polo, it's pollo. Always remember double L is a y. The other sound, the double r, erre, that's called a trill. It's a trilled sound. It's rolling the r. There are some do it with their tongue on the roof of their mouth. Spanish speakers, from my experience, will be absolutely forgiving if you do not trill your double r's and they'll understand what you're trying to pronounce. So if you can't get this, it'll be okay. I add this into the ten sounds because it is something to work towards. Or when you hear that trill, you'll realize, oh, it's the double R. And the third unique letter is the letter eñe. The N with the tilde on top of it. That is pronounced ny like Canyon. A word you might have heard with the eñe is año, That means year. año would not be ano. It's an important distinction to make when you see the N with a tilde on it, to not pronounce it like an N. Because some people may not get what you're saying unless they have context where they can guess that you've pronounced the eñe like the letter N. The third and last category I want to go over are letters that you'll find in the English alphabet that you might pronounce like you do an English, but they are very different. Let's start first with H. The H in Spanish is silent. It's not hhh like in English. There is no pronunciation of the letter H in Spanish. For example, a brother is hermano. A sister is hermana. H is silent. You'll know not to say hermano, say hermano. The H is silent. The J in Spanish, it's pronounced like the H as in hat. So for June, junio, for July, julio. Also, you may have heard some men have the first name Julio. So if you can think about that, that might help you remember to pronounce the letter J in Spanish, like the letter H in English. And those are the ten sounds, the vowels a, e, i, o, and u; the letters that are unique to Spanish: elle, erre, and eñe. As well as the similar letters of h, which by the way is hache and the J which is called jota. I find if you can master these ten sounds, then you will eliminate the majority of most noticeable errors in Spanish. If you want to go further, there's also a downloadable worksheet in the class project section called practice with phonetic spellings in Spanish. You can download that, follow the instructions, and learn how to better pronounce any Spanish word. As a side note with pronunciation, there's also the question of which syllable should be stressed when you're saying a word. Let's look at Los Angeles, a city in California, which means the angels. There's one syllable in los and three in angeles. So one syllable words are easy. It's just los. But would you say Los ANgeles or Los AnGEles or Los AngeLES? In Spanish, there's a straightforward rule on which syllable to stress in a word. When the word ends in a vowel or ends with an S or an N after a vowel, the syllable you stress is on the second to last syllable. Any other time you stress the last syllable. So in the case of Los Angeles, the winner would be Los AnGEles. For exceptions to this rule, you'll notice an accent over the letter, as in the o in adiós for goodbye. And león for lion. León has an accent because it doesn't follow this rule. But the plural of leones does not have an accent because it follows the rule. Depending on the instructional program you choose, that program might focus on how to pronounce Spanish. Others may just tell you to repeat the word after they've modeled it. If you find you need more instruction on how to pronounce Spanish, than this lesson or your program provides, my favorite way is to perform a Google search for how to say and then add the Spanish word you want to say. Like here we've searched for how to say hola, which is hello. The search results will come up with an audio file of the pronunciation for you to listen and practice with. Yet, if that doesn't fit your style, there's a plethora of videos on sites like YouTube about all things related to Spanish pronunciation. Or you could also search for articles online or from the library. By using the pronunciation guide, the three-page worksheet titled practice with phonetic spellings in Spanish, or using any of the other tips mentioned, you can pretty quickly go from saying things like Los Angeles to Los Angeles. Now, let's move on to adjectives and learn how their placement differs from English. 6. Adjectives: Adjectives in Spanish have the same function they do in English. They modify a noun, which is a person, place, or thing, to describe a quality or trait of that noun. For example, when we say red kangaroo, red is the adjective modifying the noun of kangaroo. Where adjectives in Spanish differ from English, is in their position in a sentence. In Spanish, the adjectives are after the noun. So you'd say canguro rojo or literally translated kangaroo red. Similar to lesson two, where we talked about the benefit of having an upside down exclamation or question mark at the beginning of a sentence, there's a benefit to having the adjective after the noun. It's helpful when you're reading something and you read el canguro rojo, literally meaning the kangaroo red instead of the red kangaroo. Because when you read that phrase, you instantly know in your mind it's a kangaroo first. And then you can visualize that the kangaroo is red. But in the English language, when you read the word red, you can only visualize the color red. And then the next word lets you see what's red, a kangaroo. So then you can wed the red with the kangaroo. While our minds do this instinctively and quickly, the logic behind having the noun first, then the adjective, does make more sense to me. In any case, knowing that the positioning of adjectives is different between English and Spanish is the one thing to remember from this lesson. It's that simple. Let's take a look at number which is singular and plural and why it's important. 7. Number: In English and Spanish, we have number, which is singular and plural. In Spanish, like English, nouns can be singular or plural. Unlike English, Spanish modifiers like adjectives and articles can also be singular, or they can be plural. Let's start with nouns and use our kangaroo again. Kangaroo is canguro in Spanish, that's singular. If you have a group of kangaroos, it'd be canguros for plural. It'd be similar for seal, which is foca for singular, or focas for seals, plural. Let's look at some examples of words that don't end in the common -o, or -a. Tiger is tigre. And that's singular. Tigers is tigres when it's plural. But what if our noun doesn't end in a vowel, A, E, I, O or U, but ends in a consonant? Let's take lion, which is león, singular. What do we do? We add an ES at the end of the word to come up with leones, or lions, plural. Though there are many rules on how to make nouns plural in Spanish, including some exceptions, we're going to keep it short and sweet for this class, because the vast majority of nouns will follow these two rules. If a singular Spanish noun ends in a vowel AEIOU, you add an S. Or, if the singular Spanish noun ends in a consonant, you add an ES, or S in some instances. When in doubt, using an online translator will show you if you've fallen upon an exception to these two rules. Just search for English Spanish online translator, enter the plural English word you want to translate into Spanish, and you can see if these two basic rules worked for what you're looking to make plural. If you remember one thing regarding number and nouns, remember that for most situations, if a Spanish noun ends in an S, it's plural. Now on to number and modifiers. We're going to look at the two modifiers of nouns, which are adjectives and articles. Since we covered adjectives in the last lesson, let's talk articles which are a/an or the in English. In Spanish, the articles of a or an are un and unos for masculine or una and unas for feminine. The articles of the can be masculine, el for singular, and los for plural. Or feminine la for singular and las for plural. We'll go into gender, or masculine and feminine, in our next lesson where this will make more sense. The important thing to remember with adjectives and articles in Spanish is that they match the number of the noun. In other words, if we have the red kangaroo, it'd be el canguro rojo. But the red kangaroos would be los canguros rojos. Notice how in English only the noun becomes plural. But in Spanish, the article, the noun, and the adjective all match to be plural. Another way to say this is that the noun, whether it's singular or plural, dictates whether the adjective and article are singular or plural. Just like was mentioned in Lesson two with punctuation and lesson six with adjectives, The differences between where these things are in a sentence have a benefit over English. I think the same applies to making the adjectives and articles match the number of a noun. Because if I'm reading los canguros rojos out loud in class I know as soon as I read the word los that I'm dealing with a group of something. In English. As soon as I read the word the, I have no clue if it's singular or plural. Neither language is better than the other. But I find having to learn the benefits of the differences can help with motivation to learn and retention of the concept. Since number and gender go hand in hand, let's round out the whole picture by learning about gender next. 8. Gender: Gender in Spanish is another difference from the English language. The same word or noun in Spanish can have a male or masculine version and a female or feminine version. Remember our grandfather abuelo from lesson four covering diminutives and grandmother, abuela? Those are the same word, but by having an O at the end of the word, it's masculine and by adding an A, it's feminine. It's that easy for most other nouns. So generally speaking, if a singular noun ends in O, it's masculine. If it ends in A, it's feminine. But if a plural noun ends in OS like canguros for kangaroos, It could be a group of all male kangaroos, or it could be a group of male and female kangaroos, regardless of the ratio of male to female. Because as long as there's one male in the group, it's canguros. If the entire group of kangaroos are female, then the plural noun would end in AS for feminine and would be canguras. While, like with canguro, you can change a noun that ends in masculine O to feminine A, If you know the gender of the noun isn't masculine. The same does not apply to a noun that just naturally ends in A like foca for seal. So what do we do? We don't ever say foco. That's when you become dependent upon the article of el and la for the, or un or una for a and an when the noun is singular, to know whether it's a male or female seal. So it's el foca for a male seal or los focas for a group of seals that has at least one male. Or la foca for a female seal, or las focas for a group of female seals. But what about a noun that doesn't end in O or A, like tigre for tiger? Is that masculine or feminine? We don't know without the article or other contexts. But if we have a tiger who just gave birth, then we'd say la tigre and know it's a female tiger since la and las are feminine articles for the word the. And as you've probably guessed, a male tiger would be el tigre. A group of all male tigers, or a group of tigers with at least one male would be los tigres. And a group of all tigers who are female would be las tigres. As you can see, the article of the, which can be el masculine or la feminine for singular, and los masculine or las feminine for plural, And the article of a/an which can be un masculine or una feminine for singular, and unos masculine or unas feminine for plural, give us insight into what gender noun is, especially when the noun doesn't end in the usual O and OS for masculine or A and AS for feminine. And just like we saw in our previous lesson eight on number, the noun dictates not only whether the adjectives and articles are singular or plural, the noun also dictates whether the adjectives and articles are masculine or feminine. So let's apply all this to an example. If we have a group of red female kangaroos, but we have one male kangaroo in the group, what do we call that group in Spanish? It's los canguros rojos, with one male in the group, it all becomes a masculine group. But if we take that one male kangaroo out of the group and have all female kangaroos, what do we say now? It's las canguras rojas. Now, here's a side note, though we're not going this much in depth in this class I did want to mention that there are possessive adjectives in Spanish, like an English. Let's take a look at the possessive adjective for my. If you're saying my red kangaroo, you would say mi canguro rojo or mi cangura roja. And my red kangaroos would be mis canguros rojos or mis canguras rojas. There's no gender in the possessive adjectives of my, or even your, like there is in the articles of the, a, and an. To wrap up this lesson, all you really need to understand is when a noun or the adjectives and/or articles accompanying the noun ends in O, it's usually masculine and ending in A is usually feminine. As you learn more and more Spanish vocabulary, you'll pick up on the exceptions that there are to this, like foca for seal. And remember, if you're ever unsure, you're just a search away from figuring it out through an online English Spanish translator. The important thing is now you'll be able to detect if something is male or female and understand why it's different. So congratulations are in order because you have only one more lesson left. Let's finish this class by looking at the last lesson to discover what you can do now with what you've learned. 9. What's Next?: In this class you've learned about punctuation and how it cues you when reading, cognates and how they can make learning Spanish easier, diminutives and why they're used. Pronunciation and how to sound more like a native speaker. Adjectives and how their placement makes sense. Number, which is singular and plural and why it's important. And gender, which is masculine and feminine, and what the subtleties tell you. Now that you understand some of the major differences between English and Spanish, what's next? Well, you have a couple of options. First, if you're beginning to study Spanish or are refreshing your skills after a long break, but aren't quite sure where to start, Please watch our class titled Spanish for beginners: Six ways to learn. That class will show you six ways to learn Spanish that you may not have known about and equips you to pick the way that best fits you. Second, if you completed the worksheet titled practice with phonetic spellings in Spanish, using Aprosae's Spanish pronunciation guide, please post it in the project section along with any questions you have, and I'll get back to you. And lastly, please follow us so you get word of when we have new classes. Whatever you do with learning Spanish, please remember, you can't do it all in a day, nor should you. It all starts with taking a first step. So congratulations on taking this class as one of those first steps to understanding the Spanish language. Remember, we're here to help you get to where you want to be. Please post your worksheet or any questions you have so you'll be one step closer to where you want to be. ¡Adiós!