ALL >> Education >> View Article
How To Understand Basic Spanish - A Beginners Basics
![Profile Picture](https://www.123articleonline.com/images/avatar-default.jpg)
In this article we aim to provide you with an easy to follow guide on the basics of the Spanish language, concentrating on the differences between Spanish and English sentence structure.
Sentence Structure
If you want to understand basic Spanish you need to know that the main difference between English and Spanish is in the way that sentences are constructed. Firstly let us look at a typical Spanish sentence.
Me gusta el vino espańol.
This sentence means;
I like Spanish wine.
Did you notice that in the English version wine comes after Spanish, but in the Spanish sentence vino comes before espańol? This is because in the Spanish language the adjective (an adjective is word than is used to describe something,in this case we have used espańol, which means Spanish), always comes after the noun (a noun is basically another name for a thing, in this case vino meaning wine).
So if I wanted to say, I like white wine, in Spanish I would say Me gusta vino blanco. Blanco means white in Spanish.
The rule applies whether we are referring to a drink or a person.
...
... The English sentence A Spanish man.
Would translate in Spanish to Un seńor espańol
Have you noticed another difference between the English and Spanish sentences? In the example we have used we can see that espańol starts with a lower case, or small e, but in English when saying Spanish we use a capital S, this is because any reference to a country in English should have a capital letter at the start of the word, but in Spanish you would only use a capital letter when using the countries name directly.
If we say Soy de Espańa
This translates as,
I am of Spain
Because we used Espańa which is the name on the country it gets a capital letter. Therefore if I say;
Soy américano(I am an American man). In Spanish we have a small a, as opposed to;
Soy de América(I am of America). Because we use the word for America (which is called a proper noun) we use an A.
How To Recognize Questions
In English we can change a statement to a question by adding the word DO and a question mark (?). As an example the statement you have a pencil could be something I say as I hand over a pencil or merely a statement of fact. But if I say do you have a pencil?, then there is no doubt that I am asking a question.
There is no word for DO in Spanish so we have to have another of way of knowing that the sentence we have just started is a question. To do this the Spanish language uses two question marks ¿?, the inverted one at the start of the sentence and the standard one at the end. Therefore:
Tiene un lapiz, (tiene can mean you have and lapiz is pencil)
This statement becomes a question when we add ¿ and ?.
¿Tiene un lapiz? so if you see the question mark at the start of a sentence you know that you have to alter the tone of your voice to make it questioning.
We hope that these few tips might make understanding basic Spanish that little bit easier for you, and hopefully got you excited about learning more!
Add Comment
Education Articles
1. Chennai Public School: Pioneering New Heights In Education ExcellenceAuthor: HubraSEO
2. An Overview Of The L3 Assessor Competence Level (taqa) And L3 Assessor Certificate Cava (taqa) Courses
Author: Mark
3. Getting Started With The Level 3 Award In Education & Training (aet) And Teacher Training (ptlls) Course
Author: Mark
4. Building A Balanced Portfolio With Expert-driven Investment Solutions
Author: Neha Jain
5. One Sitting Degree In 2024
Author: vandana
6. Snowflake Online Training Course | Snowflake Training
Author: Madhavi
7. The Best Terraform Automation Online Training Institute | Ameerpet
Author: SIVA
8. Taking Your Business Skills To The Next Level: Professional Masters In Business Administration
Author: IIBMS Institute
9. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain In Hyderabad
Author: Hari
10. Aws Cloud Automation Using Terraform Training
Author: Eshwar
11. Boost Engagement With Bespoke E-learning Content Development
Author: vinay
12. Gcp Devops Online Training | Gcp Devops Training | Visualpath
Author: Renuka
13. Tibco Spotfire Training Course Online | Tibco
Author: krishna
14. Dbt (data Build Tool) Training Hyderabad | Data Build Tool Training
Author: Susheelvisualpath
15. Case Study: The Impact Of Bespoke E-learning Content Development On Corporate Training
Author: vinay