Learning the Basics of Spanish Language Grammar
It is not just enough to know hundreds of words in Spanish to be able to communicate effectively with the natives.
What you need is to be sensitive in learning about the Spanish language grammar as well. This is to make sure that they understand what you say and you say what you understand.
In line with this, it is but necessary for you to learn even the basic of the grammar of the language. Though it cannot be really easy for non-native speaker such as you, you can always make way to understand and learn about it. Take note of these following guidelines in terms of the basic Spanish grammar:
- Articles. If the English language has “the,” “a,” and “an,” the Spanish grammar has a lot of them. This is because they have separate articles for masculine and feminine, definite and indefinite, and singular and plural.For instance, male is referred to as “el” in definite singular, “los” in definite plural, “un” in definite singular, and “unos” in indefinite plural. On the other hand, female is referred to as “la,” “las,” “una,” and “unas” respectively.
- Adjectives. The adjectives in the Spanish language grammar is a way similar to that of the English language except for three known differences such as:
- The adjectives in Spanish usually appear after the noun. For example, “mi casa roja,” which means my red house. “Casa” is the noun and “roja” is the adjective.
- The adjectives change depending on the gender of the nouns. For instance, if you use “roja” as an adjective for two different nouns such as cup and glass, the form of the adjective will change. Since cup is feminine, you use “la taza roja.” On the other hand, you use “el vaso rojo” for glass since it is masculine.
- The adjectives can stand for nouns or pronouns in a sentence. It is normal to say “el grande” to refer to a big man.
- Verbs. If you are a native English speaker, you will see that the Spanish language grammar is complicated in terms of the verbs, especially the tenses and the conjugation. Take for example eat which is “comen” in Spanish.If you check the English grammar, it will have two forms in the present tense—eat and eats. However, in Spanish, you will see six different forms of the verb because it is being conjugated to the pronouns usually.
Eat in Spanish present tense can be “como,” “comes,” “come,” “comemos,” “comeis,” and “comen”.
- Pronouns. There is a wide list of pronouns in the Spanish grammar. This includes “yo,” “tu,” “usted,” “nosotros,” “vosotros,” “el,” “ella,” “ello,” “ellos,” “ellas,” and a lot more.Usually, the pronouns get lost in the sentence as a result of verb conjugation. However, there are instances that it is still seen in both written and spoken language for emphasis and to avoid confusion as well especially in terms of the conjugation.
- Prepositions. Some examples of Spanish language grammar prepositions are “a,” “bajo,” “ante,” “con,” “contra,” “de,” “en,” “para,” “por,” “sin,” “so,” “sobre,” and “mediante.”
With knowledge on the basics of the language, it is not far that you can be an effective communicator in Spanish speaking countries. However, there are still more to learn about the Spanish language grammar to be a perfect speaker of the language. But still, all learning will begin in these basic grammar lessons.
