Basic Spanish, posted by Cameron Klales and Matthew Marshall

Part one: Greetings and Goodbyes

created by Cameron Klales and Matthew Marshall

Knowing is important because if you meet someone new who only know Spanish this is how you greet them.

 

All of the following are ways to say hello:

Spanish	English
Hola	Hello
Buenos dias	Good morning
Buenas tardes	Good afternoon
Buenas noches	Good evening

 

Good evening can be used as a greeting or a good bye.

 

The following are ways to say how are you and ways to respond:

Spanish	English
¿Qué tal? ¿Cómo va? ¿Cómo estas?    Informal ¿Cómo esta?      Formal	How are you?
Bien, gracias	Well, thanks
Más o menos	Alright
Mal/ Terrible	Awful
Y tu           Informal Y Usted    Formal	And you?
¡Ay, ay, ay!	Oh, no!
¡Qué bien!	Oh, good!

 

You use formal when talking to a person who is older than you. Informal is used talk to people younger than you.

 

The following are all ways to say goodbye:

Spanish	English
Adiós	Bye
¡Hasta luego!	See you later
¡Hasta pronto!	See you soon
Hasta mañana	See you tomorrow
Qué le vaya bien	Have a good one

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two friends are walking in the hallway and pass each other.

 

Friend 1: Hola senor. (hello sir)

Friend 2: Hola. ¿Que tal? (hi, how are you?)

Friend 1: Bien. ¿Y tú? (good, and you?)

Friend 2: Muy Bien gracias. Adios. (very good thanks. bye)

Friend 1: Adios. (bye)

 

Person 1: Muchas gracias senor.

 

Person 2: Por nada.

 

 

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Part three: Numbers reference sheet.

Created by Cameron Klales and Matthew Marshall

 

For most of the following lessons, it is important that you learn/know the numbers 1-100 in Spanish, here is a brief lesson and numbers table, refer back to this as needed throughout the rest of the lesson. The numbers one through fifteen all have their own individual names; these will be the hardest to learn. They still won’t be very difficult though. And once you have them down the rest of the numbers will be a breeze to learn. 

 

Uno	One
Dos	Two
Tres	Three
Cuatro	Four
Cinco	Five
Seis	Six
Siete	Seven
Ocho	Eight
Nueve	Nine
Diez	Ten
Once	Eleven
Doce	Twelve
Trece	Thirteen
Catorce	Fourteen
Quince	Fifteen

Key:

English

Spanish

Now that you have these down, the rest will be a snap. The numbers 16 through 29 fallow a simple pattern, the tens column number is merged with the units column number. Here is a chart

Dieciseis	Sixteen
Dieciseite	Seventeen
Deiciocho	Eighteen
Diecinueve	Nineteen
Veinte	Twenty
Veintiuno	Twenty one
Veintidòs	Twenty two
Veintitrès	Twenty three
Veinticautro	Twenty four
Veinticinco	Twenty five
Veintiseis	Twenty six
Veintiseite	Twenty seven
Veintiocho	Twenty eight
Veintineuve	Twenty nine

 

 

For the numbers 30-99 the pattern changes. From here you really only need to know the base numbers, so 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90. All of these numbers and their pronunciations are listed below.

Treinta	Thirty
Cuarenta	Forty
Cincuenta	Fifty
Sesenta	Sixty
Setenta	Seventy
Ochenta	Eighty
noventa	Ninety

 

So add a unit, you just put “y ______(fill in the blank)” after the tens column number so 33 is written as “treinta y tres” but remember, you pronounce all three of those words as one word.  Refer back to this tutorial as needed throughout the rest of the blog. Now that you have the numbers down you can move on to the date and time.

 

 

Part four: The date

Created be Cameron Klales and Matthew Marshall

 

Ok, so you’ve covered numbers, the time, now on to the date! The easiest place to start with the date is learning the months, or “mes” in spanish. You need to know these before you can answer questions about the date. Here is a table of the months and their translations

Enero	January
Febrero	February
Marzo	Mach
Abril	April
Mayo	May
Junio	June
Julio	July
Agosto	August
Septeimbre	September
Octubre	October
Novembre	November
Deciciembre	December

Key:

English

Spanish

Refer back to this chart as needed throughout the tutorial.

 

Ok so now you can learn to ask “what is today’s date”. In spanish “what is todays date” translates to “¿Cual es la fecha de hoy?”. Like “¿A Què hora es?” this is not a direct translation. But because different languages use different grammar, it is written differently.

 

To answer this question, the next thing you should learn is the formant the date is written in. here in America, we write it as MM/DD but in Spanish speaking cultures, its written as DD/MM. as you might guess it is read and said in the same order. Lets say, for example that you were asked this on October the 10^th. You would say “es el diez de octubre” be sure to remember that the pattern is always es el [date] de [month]

Situation: one person asks another for todays date:

Person 1#: hola (hi)

Person 2#: hola. ¿cual es la fecha de hoy?(hi, what is todays date?)

Person 1#: Es el uno de noviembre (its the first of novembre)

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Part four: Days Of The Week

created by Cameron Klales and Matthew Marshall

 

When you need to plan a future event with someone who only speaks Spanish you need to know the days of the week. The days of the week are:

Spanish:	English:
lunes	Monday
martes	Tuesday
miércoles	Wednesday
jueves	Thursday
viernes	Friday
sábado	Saturday
domingo	Sunday

The days in Spanish aren’t capitalized.

 

To ask the day of the week you say: ¿Qué día es hoy?

The answer to this question is: Hoy (Today) es (is) ______________

 To say "tomorrow" you say "mañana" so "Què dia es hoy" becomes "¿Què dia es mañana?"

Situation: two friends bump into each other in the hallway. one asks the other what day it is and what day tomorrow is:

Person 1#: Hola.

Person 2#: ¿Que dia es hoy?

Person 1#: es lunes

Person 2#: ¿que dia es mañana?

Person 1#: es martes

 

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Part five:Time is of the essence

Created by Cameron Klales and Matthew Marshall

 

Ok, now that you have the numbers down, let move on to the time. Knowing the time is as essential in Spanish as it is in English. It will be fairly easy to learn since it fallows the same patterns as it does in the English language. Lets start with the basics. To ask the time in Spanish, you say “¿Què hora es?” or “¿Què hora son? Or ¿Què hora tiene? All of these translate roughly to “What time is it?”

 

Now, you know how to ask what time it is, but what if you need to ask when something is? To ask this, you use the same basic phrases but you ad “A” in front of them so as a complete phrase, this would be “¿A què hora es?”  While this directly translates to “ at what time is?” but literally means “what time is _______ at?” the answer to “¿Què hora es?” you simply say  “Son las ___” so eight o clock would be, “ Son las ocho” you use “Son las” for all the numbers except the number one, for which you use “Es la” so “Es la una” means its one o clock. To say what time something is at, you follow the same pattern as when your asking, you just add “A” to the front of the sentence. So “A son las ocho” means its at eight. To say it is an hour and some minutes you just add “y __” In Spanish “y” is pronounced as “eee” .  Keep this in mind when using verbal Spanish. This is the same system used so, 8:23 translates to “ocho y ventitrès”. Remember to say the time you say the hour number than the minute number so “[hour] y [minute]”

 

Now that you have that down, your eighty percent of the way there, all you have left to learn are a few ways to say a few specific times, these are for the half hour and the quarter hour. For the half hour you say “media” so 10:30 is “diez y media”. For the quarter hour, you say “__ y cuarto” for :15 and “__menos cuarto” for :45. Menos is Spanish for “minus” you u start saying “menos” instead of “y” at the :45.

 

Situation: one friend asks another what time is math class.

Person 1#: Hola(hi)

Person 2#: Hola(hi)

Person 1#: ¿A que hora es la classe de mathematicas?(at what time is math class?)

Person 2#: A son las ocho y media( its at eight  thirty

Person 1#: gracias

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Part six: the weather

Created by Cameron Klales and Matthew Marshall

 

 

Knowing how to ask and explain about the weather is a valuable skill; it (if nothing else) will allow you to make small talk among friends and family.

 

To ask the what the weather is like you say “ ¿Qúe teimpo hace?”.  Remember, teimpo mean weather, not temperature. To ask temperature, you say “ ¿Qùe es la temparatura?”

To reply to ¿Qúe teimpo hace? You can say any of the following, depending on the weather.

 

Hace  frìo	It’s cold
Hace calor	It’s hot
Hace viento	It’s windy
Hace sol	It’s sunny
Hace fresco	It’s cool
Hace tormentas	It’s stormy
Està loviendo	It’s raining
Està nevando	It’s snowing
Està nublado	It’s cloudy

All of these are applicable to a conversation about the weather.

Key:

Spanish

English

Hace and Està  both mean “it is” or  “it’s” It is also good to know seasons, so that you can articulate yearly weather.

 

El inveirno	Winter
La primavera	Spring
El verano	Summer
El otono	Fall

 

Now you can say what is weather is like in a given season. So describing your local weather is made easier. For example, to say “In Philadelphia, it is cold in the winter” you say :” En Filadelfia, el inveirno es moy frìo.

 

A real life conversation about the weather:

Person 1#: ¡Hola! ¿Que teimpo hace hoy? Translation: Hi, whats the weather like today?

Person 2#:Hace frìo Translation: it’s cold

Person 1#:  Ay Translation: oh

 

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Thank you for using our Spanish tutorial, we hope you found it helpful and can walk away with something new.
yours truly, Cameron Klales and Matthew Marshall