Spanish For Beginners

Courses designed to be used as Spanish for beginners usually can come in very different forms. The older more traditional methods involve getting to grips with the verbs and nouns at an early stage. These methods certainly still have their place, but increasingly the emphasis is on a more fun way to learn. Spanish for beginners is now made a lot easier than it used to be.

There's nothing wrong with learning how to decline verbs. It's something you have to know about if you want to speak Spanish properly. In English the verb stays the same throughout much of the time and we surround it by whatever or whoever is doing something.

Now I'm going to explain a little bit about verbs. Stay with it though – the really, really good bits are coming up very shortly!

The verb "to have" doesn't change between saying "I have" and "they have" in English. It does in Spanish though. The Spanish verb "to have" is "tener." In order to say, "I have" you say, "tengo." If you want to say, "they have," you say, "tememos."

Of course, the verb, "to have" does change in English too. We say, "I have a new car," but "she has a new car." In this case the Spanish verb changes from "tengo" to "tiene" – "tengo un coche nuevo," and "ella tiene un coche nuevo." Confusing? Yes, but no more so than for someone learning English. Is there an easier way to at least learn some Spanish? Yes, there is!

You can start your Spanish for beginners course by learning all the words that are very similar in spelling and meaning to their English counterparts. This will give you an arsenal of some 3,000 words! That's a pretty good start, isn't it?

In your quest for the perfect Spanish for beginners, what do you think "formación" means? Or how about, the Spanish equivalent of Mick Jagger singing, "I Can't Get No Satisfacción"? If this causes you any confusión or depresión, it shouldn't.

These are just a few examples of the many words that Spanish and English share from a common root. They are spelt nearly the same and they mean the same thing. All you have to do is learn how they differ. Even that is easy. These words tend to follow rules: the "ic" ending English words becomes, "ico" in Spanish, "ence" endings become "encia," and "ive" endings become "ivo." There are plenty of others too.

This is all you need to do. Suppose you wanted to say (for whatever reason), the phrase, "persuasive silence." All you have to do is change the "persuasive" to "persuasivo" and change "silence" to "silencia" and you get "persuasivo silencio." Did you notice that "silencia" became "silencio"? That's just because the endings usually have to agree too, but other than that, Spanish for beginners doesn't get much easier!

To finish up, see if you can guess (you will) what these Spanish words mean: nudista, violinista, optimista, definición, constipación, circulación, conclusión, versión, mansión, industrial, interracial, universal (yes, those three are Spanish words), económico, músico, mecánico, lubricante, ignorante, restaurante, and many, many more.

Did you notice the three Spanish words that are identical to the same English ones? Spanish for beginners will seem a whole lot easier when I tell you that there are at least 260 more words just like that.