Spanish Lesson 2
Hello, again. I posted a lesson on Spanish just yesterday, leaving you with some insight on conjugating and some basic phrases. I had more I wanted to say, but all of that had already taken up three page’s worth of writing on Google Docs and I was extremely tired. So, let us begin again.
So, you know of the stem-changing verbs and regular verbs. Let’s go a bit more in-depth...IRREGULARS. Possibly the worst part of Spanish, in my opinion. They are just verbs that do not follow any specific pattern, for the most part.
Let’s look at ir. It means, “To go”. The conjugation may throw you off. So, here it is.
Yo voy
Tú vas
Usted él/ella va
Nosotros vamos
Vosotros vais
Ustedes/ellos/ellas van
No, I did not make a typo on the vosotros form. There really is not an accent on the vosotros form of ir. Well, that is an irregular. They will become an annoyance if you start to seriously study, believe me. There are more like it, and they are all equally as confusing and annoying.
Well, I guess we should start studying more verbs. Here are some that I would consider essential to know.
Tener - To have
Estar - To be
Ser - To be
Vivir - To live
Gustar - To be pleasing (To like)
Llamar - To be called/named
Saber - To know
Conocer - To know
Comer - To eat
Beber - To drink
Dormir - To sleep
Pedir - To be able to (can)
Don’t worry about the amount of verbs I just gave you. The amount isn’t anything big at all. What you need to look out for, though, are stem changers like pedir, dormir, ser, estar, and tener.
Now, the stem for tener changes as follows:
Tengo
Tienes
Tiene
Tenemos
Tenéis
Tienen
On every form but yo, nosotros, and vosotros, there is an I added to the stem of the words. Not only that, tener is a -go verb. A verb that adds a -go to the yo form of the verb. There are many more like this, and they become easy once you study a bit. Nothing to worry about, I promise you.
Estar doesn’t change aside from the yo form being estoy.
Ser’s stem changes as follows:
Soy
Eres
Es
Somos
Sois
Son
Again, no accent on the vosotros form. It is just a little thing some words do. I am not sure why, as I, myself, am not fluent in Spanish yet. But yes, this verb does not follow a pattern and if you don’t pay attention to it, it WILL cause you trouble. I will explain the difference between this and estar later into the lesson.
Dormir’s stem changes as follows:
Duermo
Duermes
Duerme
Dormimos
Dormís
Duermen
As you can see, it is an o - ue verb. And if you have trouble remembering this, just remember that the nosotros and vosotros forms have the O. It sounds ridiculous, but it did help me. If you can’t be helped simply by trying to remember it in your head, write down the conjugation over and over. Drill and kill works.
Pedir’s stem changes as follows:
Pido
Pides
Pide
Pedimos
Pedís
Piden
Pedir, like dormir, is a verb where the second letter changes. But this time, e - i. I know of no ways to study this one than the same way you would study dormir. Of course, that is how I memorized a lot of verbs.
I think we have enough verbs for now. We should focus on vocabulary a bit. We haven’t done any of that, and...well, what is the point of knowing verbs if you don’t know any nouns or adjectives to go along with it? It is completely pointless, unless you try to look at sentences where the words are similar to English.
So, here are some vocabulary words you should know. Let’s start with some food. Everyone loves food.
El pescado - Fish
La hamburguesa - Hamburger
El helado - Ice cream
La manzana - Apple
El pollo - Chicken
La naranja - Orange
El huevo - Egg
La comida - Food
El brócoli - Broccoli
La cebolla - Onion
Now, some adjectives to go along with these nouns, so they aren’t as useless.
Bueno - Good
Frío - Cold
Caliente - Hot
Verde - Green
Rojo/colorado - Red
Blanco - White
Marrón - Brown
Morado - Purple
Rosa - Pink
Blando - Soft
Firme - Hard
Anaranjado - Orange
That should be enough to get you through with the few nouns I have given you there. Let’s do sports things now. I know sports may not exactly be your thing, and you may be thinking, “When would I ever use THIS?!”, but believe me. The small amount of extra practice surprisingly helps.
El fútbol - Soccer
El fútbol Americano - American football
El tenís - Tennis
El nadar - Swimming
El correr - Running
There isn’t really much to go over here, but here is some more vocabulary to go along with the sports.
Partido(a) de - Game of
Ganar - To win
El jugador - Player
El equipo - Team
Raqueta de tenís - Tennis racket
Los zapatos del correr - Running shoes
The last article of business for today: Ser VS Estar. Simply put, ser has to do with elements pertinent to your or others' identity and things that occur or take place in time. Some examples are physical description, personality and character, nationality, race, gender, profession, origin, what things are made of, dates, days, seasons, time, events, concerts, and parties. For now, you don’t need to memorize them all, though. I will explain why in the next paragraph.
Now, we are going over estar. Estar is just states of being, such as feelings/moods/emotions, physical conditions or appearances, civil state, placement of being, and motion state of being. It is all simple once you start to study it more and get used to it. Soon, you will pick it up as easily as you picked up English, or whatever your native language is.
In the next lesson, I will go over the genders a little bit more, then go over numbers and the alphabet. For now, goodbye.
-Trent