Learning Spanish - Introduction to Spanish Grammar

While picking up a new language, it's always of value to be acquainted with its primary grammatical building block. This makes up the 1st required step in order to interpret and produce meaningful speech.

Here are the principal grammatical components in Spanish and a few valuable facts on them:

Adjectives:
Adjectives are used to qualify a specific noun, to state something about it. It's crucial to think that in Spanish they're commonly placed after the noun. As adjectives are always associated a noun, they've got to match with them in gender and number.

This means that whenever you would like to say something about the noun “niño”, which is masculine and singular, the adjective that you utilise will likewise have to be masculine and singular. Hence, you are able to say “niño alto” (tall boy), “niño pequeño” (small boy), etc. If, then again, if we are discussing a young woman, you'd have to say “niña alta” and “niña pequeña”.

Nouns:
Nouns are words which are for the most part used to mention to a person or thing. Every nouns in Spanish has a sex, signifying that they're either masculine or feminine. For instance, “niño” (boy) is masculine and “niña” (girl) is feminine. The easiest way to distinguish gender is without doubt experience, though here are a few general guidelines which perhaps could be valuable at. First of all: typically nouns ending in –o are masculine and nouns ending in –a are feminine. Naturally there are always exceptions.

For instance, “mano” (hand) and “radio” (radio) are feminine. On the opposite side, words from Greek origin ending in –ma, such as “dilema” (dilemma) or “problema” (problem) are masculine. While you're studying fresh vocabulary, it's recommendable that you learn a noun with its corresponding article. That will assist you to recall their gender. For example “la niña”, “la mano” or “el problema” and “el niño”.

Pronouns:
Pronouns replace nouns. For instance, you are able to say “la niña está aquí” (the girl is here) or “ella está aquí” (she is here). In that case “ella” is replacing for “la niña”. The subject pronouns in Spanish are “yo” (I), “tú/usted/vos” (singular you), él (he), ella (she), nosotros (we), vosotros/ustedes (plural you), ellos (they).

The singular and plural “you” are employed differently dependent on the dialect of Spanish that you're utilizing. It's significant to recall that subject pronouns are often dropped in Spanish, because the ending of the verb already shows this. Therefore, native speakers would state “estoy aquí” (I’m here) rather than “yo estoy aquí”.

Verbs:
Verbs indicate actions. Normally while you recite a verb, you use what is known as the infinitive, e.g. “hablar” (to speak). In Spanish there are 3 different types of verbs, depending of how their infinitive ends. These distinct categories are known as conjugations.

Thus, there are verbs ending in –ar, such as “hablar”, in -er “comer” (to eat) and in –ir “dormir” (to sleep). As brought up earlier, verbs in Spanish have different endings dependent on who the subject of the action is. These endings will alter from one conjugation to the other. For instance, with the verb “hablar”, the singular “you” is “(tú) hablas”, whereas with “comer” it is “(tú) comes”.