I have started taking Spanish lessons from a Cuban recently. I have a lovely teacher and I enjoy learning this language very much. And in this blog I'd like to share what I learn in those lessons. I hope to find other people who want to learn Spanish, who have been learning Spanish or who already can speak Spanish. Hopefully, I will have opportunities to exchange information with you.
I think almost every beginning Spanish course starts with the following typical conversations. Because learning dialogs is probably the best method to get to know a new foreign language. Everything seems to be so complicated at the beginning. That's why I think for the beginning there is really no way but memorizing the fixed expressions even if you cannot explain every sentence grammatically.
These are the questions and answers we practiced in the first lesson.
Pink is the question (Pregunta); orange is the answer (Respuesta).
ASKING PERSONAL INFORMATION
¿Cómo te IIamas? (What is your name? Actually, something like how are you called)
Me IIamo Alicia (My name is Alicia)
¿y de appellido ? (and the surname?)
Martínez
¿Cómo se escribe? (How do you spell it?)
M-A-R-T-í-N-E-Z
¿y de appellido ? (and the surname?)
Martínez
¿Cómo se escribe? (How do you spell it?)
M-A-R-T-í-N-E-Z
¿De dónde eres? (Where do you come from?, Where are you from?)
(Yo) soy de Mexico (I come from Mexico)
¿Dónde vives? (Where do you live?)
vivo en Madrid (I live in Madrid)
¿Cuántos años tienes? (How old are you? Actually s.thing like how many years do you have?)
tengo treinta y dos años (I am 32 years old)
¿En qué trabajas? (What is your occupation?)
soy ingeniera (I am an engineer)
¿Dónde trabajas? (Where do you work?)
trabajo en un restaurante (I work at a restaurant)
Already in my first Spanish class, I came across one thing peculiar to Spanish: they put an inverse question mark at the beginning of a question. Because in Spanish there is no difference between a question and an answer (if it is a yes/no question). While speaking they make it correctly understood by emphasizing with the voice but since in a text they don't have this opportunity they need to show if the sentence is a question by adding the inverse question mark at the beginning of the sentence. Well, that is, at least how the teacher explained it to me.
I don't think that is one of the first things you ask to a person whom you just got to know, but the following is also from my first lesson on Spanish
MARITAL STATUS
¿ eres casada? (Are you married?)--if the person is female the version ending with "a" is used
¿ eres casado? (Are you married?)..if the person is male the version ending with "e" is used
no, soy soltero (No, I am single)
- similar sentences can be constructed for single, widowed (eres soltero, eres viudo) etc.
- "m" stands for male and "f" for female
soltera (f) / soltero (m) -----------> single
casada (f) / casado(m) -----------> married
viuda (f) / viudo(m) --------------> widowed
divorciada (f) / divorciado(m) -------> divorced
Spanish has gender differences. Above, casado/casada etc. are adjectives and based on the gender of the person you speak to those adjectives get different endings. We learned a little bit on the gender issues but I will come to that point in one of the next posts.
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It's helpful po for beginners ^.^ tnx for the blog...
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