User:Celestianpower/Spanish/Lesson 3

Lesson 3 — Introducir a gramática

Lago Espejo, in Argentina.

Articles

As in many languages, Spanish gives each noun a gender: masculine or feminine, both for singular things and plural ones.

Spanish, like English, has two articles: the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a" or "an"). However, there are 4 forms, depending on the number and gender of the noun. The plural indefinite article is "some" in Spanish.

• If the noun ends in a vowel, to make it plural, add s.
• If the noun ends in a consonant, to make it plural, add es.

Definite articles

Spanish Grammar • Lesson 3 The definite article El artículo definido
masculine	singular	el	el hombre	the man
	plural	los	los niños	the boys
feminine	singular	la	la mujer	the woman
	plural	las	las niñas	the girls

Indefinite articles

Spanish Grammar • Lesson 3 The indefinite article El artículo indefinido
masculine	singular	un	un hombre	a man
	plural	unos	unos niños	some boys
feminine	singular	una	una mujer	a woman
	plural	unas	unas niñas	some girls

Go to the exercises.

Regular verbs

We have already seen the present tense conjugations of two Spanish verbs, lamarse and tener. In Spanish, the conjugation depends on what the last two letters of the infinitive (the form found in the dictionary — "to run", "to dance") are. It may end in "ir", "er" or "ar".

To conjugate them in the present tense, you remove the "ir", "er" or "ar" and then add a suffix. The suffixes are shown below.

Spanish Grammar • Lesson 3 Verbos regulares Regular verbs
Person	-AR verbs	-ER verbs	-IR verbs
I	-O	-O	-O
You	-AS	-ES	-ES
He/She/It	-A	-E	-E
We	-AMOS	-EMOS	-IMOS
You lot	-ÁIS	-ÉIS	-ÍS
They	-AN	-EN	-EN

Examples

• Llorar ("to cry"): lloro, lloras, llora, lloramos, lloráis, lloran
• Comer ("to eat"): como, comes, come, comemos, coméis, comen
• Vivir ("to live"): vivo, vives, vive, vivimos, vivís, viven

Go to the exercises.

Questions and Exclamations

In previous lessons, you will have noticed that we use the funny upside-down question mark "¿". In Spanish, questions always start with that, and finish with the regular question mark. It is the same for excalations; the funny upside-down exclamataion mark "¡" precedes exclamations.

Questions in Spanish are mainly done by intonation (raising the voice at the end of the question), since questions are often identical to statements. Te llamas Richard means "Your name is Richard", and ¿Te llamas Richard? means "Is your name Richard?".

You can also use questions words, as indicated below.

Spanish Vocabulary • Lesson 3 Questions Preguntas
Inglés	Español
¿Dónde?	Where?
¿Quién?	Who?
¿Qué?	What?
¿Cómo?	How?
¿Por qué?	Why?
¿Cuándo?	When?

Examples

• ¿Con quién?

  With who?

• ¿Dónde está el banco?

  Where is the bank?

• ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?

  When's your birthday?

• ¿Qué es la fecha hoy?

  What is the date today?

• ¡Hasta luego!

  See you later!

Go to the exercises.

Summary

In this lesson, you have learnt:

• The Spanish articles.
• How to conjugate regular verbs in the present tense.
• How to question people in Spanish.

You should now do the exercise related to each section (found here) before moving on. This is a very important topic for future lessons; it's important that you know it well.

You have now completed this chapter! Return to the Contents...