Tips on Learning Spanish As a Foreign Language

Spanish is the fourth most-spoken language in the world and is the official language for 20 countries spread across 4 continents. Originating in Spain, and spoken by most residents there, it is also spoken in Mexico and all of Central and South America except Brazil, Guyana and Surinam. Spanish is also spoken in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean islands.

Spanish is a first language for many people in the United States, especially in California, Texas, South Florida, and the Southwest.

A romance language, Spanish is closely related to particularly Portuguese, to Italian, and to some extent to French. English and Spanish share approximately one third of the same words, although the pronunciation tends to be very different.

Learning Spanish as a second language should pose little hindrance to native English speakers.

Spanish is one that is relatively easy for English speakers to master. Whether you are studying Spanish at school, learning the language on your own or just wanting to pick enough Spanish to make your travels more enjoyable, this collection of lessons and articles is designed to help you gain a fuller understanding of the language. Because of their common heritage, many words are very similar in English and Spanish. Take for instance the first 3 months of the year January to March in Spanish comes close to it’s English counterpart.

January — enero February — febrero March — marzo

All of the names for months are masculine: el enero, el febrero, etc. It usually isn’t necessary to use the el except when giving specific dates. Note also that the names of the month are not capitalized in Spanish. Some basic Tips on Grammer in Spanish

Spanish nouns have genders. Most words applied to persons have natural gender: masculine like hombre (”male person”) or feminine, like mujer (”female person”).

Fortunately, the gender of a noun is usually (but not always) indicated by the last letter of the word; -o indicates masculine nouns, and -a indicates feminine nouns.

The gender of some animals, things, and some words applied to persons doesn’t follow any rule: they have grammatical gender. Casa (house), rana (frog), and visita (visitor) are of the feminine gender. Árbol (tree), sapo (toad) and genio (genius) are of the masculine gender. Invitado, invitada (guest) and mono, mona (monkey) have natural gender.

Adjectives also have gender and number. Like nouns, -o usually indicates the masculine form of the adjective, and -a indicates the feminine form.

Adding an -s at the end of an adjective or noun makes it plural. Adjectives need to match the noun they describe in both gender and number. For example, borracho “drunk”, when modifying las mujeres (”the women”), makes las mujeres borrachas.

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