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If you are a beginner in Spanish, you may be wondering how difficult Spanish will turn out to be or how different it is from English. Spanish is not in fact a difficult language to learn, and there are many reasons for this. If you have never encountered Spanish before, you will be surprised to find that there are many similarities between Spanish and English, especially in the area of vocabulary. Many of the words that are similar have their origins in Latin, (visión vision, diario diary, mover to move, etc.), while many others have their roots in Greek (programa programme, sistema system, escuela school, etc.).
You will be able to deduce the meanings of many Spanish words from the similarity or correspondence between certain forms, for example Spanish -ción English -tion (acción action, situación situation), -ad -ty (libertad liberty, universidad university), -mente -ly (especialmente especially, exactamente exactly), -ico -al (idéntico identical, práctico practical), -ista -ist (artista artist, dentista dentist). But some words that look the same have different meanings in Spanish and English: actual (current, present) – actual, asistir (to attend) – to assist, carpeta (folder, table cover) – carpet, etc.
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Words that name things such as book, pound, etc. have gender in Spanish, that is they are either masculine or feminine. Libro book, for example, is masculine while libra pound is feminine. Most words ending in -o are masculine, and most of those ending in -a are feminine. A few consonant endings can tell you whether a word is masculine or feminine, but generally not, and the best thing is to learn each word with its gender.
You will also find that many grammatical words change in Spanish depending on whether they go together with a masculine or a feminine word. The word for the, for example, is el for masculine and la for feminine: el libro the book, la libra the pound. The Spanish for ‘a’ is un for masculine and una for feminine: un rato a while, una rata a rat. With time, you will acquire the capacity to make the necessary adaptations to a grammatical word in order to fit the gender of the accompanying word.
In English you normally add -s to a word to make it plural. Spanish adds -s to words ending in a vowel, but -es to those ending in a consonant: coche – coches car – cars, tren – trenes train – trains. In Spanish, the masculine plural form of words referring to people can be used to refer to males and females: hermano brother, hermanos brothers or brothers and sisters.
In English, words that describe someone or something come before the word they qualify, while in Spanish such words normally come after the word they describe: una persona interesante an interesting person (literally, a person interesting).
Unlike English, in which a word such as expensive does not change, in Spanish this must agree in gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural) with the word it qualifies: un apartamento caro/unos apartamentos caros an expensive apartment/some expensive apartments, una casa cara/unas casas caras an expensive house/some expensive houses.
Spanish verbs
If you look up the Spanish for words such as to speak, to eat, to live in a dictionary you will see that these, like all verbs in Spanish, can be grouped into three main categories according to their endings: -ar, -er and -ir verbs (hablar to speak, comer to eat, vivir to live, etc.) The largest group corresponds to -ar verbs. Spanish, like English, uses changes in the verb to denote different times, as in I speak (present), I spoke (past), I will speak (future). These changes are referred to as tense.
In Spanish, the verb endings for each tense are dependent on three factors: time (past, present, future, etc.), category of the verb (-ar, -er or -ir) and person (yo I, él he, ellos they, etc.). English has a simpler verb system, in which only the third person singular of the present tense is marked for person, by the ending -s (I work, you work, he/she/it works, etc.).
The majority of Spanish verbs follow a fixed pattern of change and so are called regular, but some behave in a different way and are called irregular. As most verbs are regular, once you know the forms for a particular tense, for example the present of hablar to speak, you will know how to form the present tense of hundreds of other verbs, so it is important that you learn the forms.
Case studies
Gary and Lorraine Sanderson, Moraira
“Forget about being British - we certainly do not miss anything about the UK! We do our best to get by in Spanish; don’t be frightened to try or that you’ll make a mistake, because the Spanish are lovely people and will help you every step of the way.”
Natasha Moon, Torrevieja
“Within four months of us being here [my son] Callum was speaking fluent Spanish, and now he translates for me sometimes. Some people worry that their kids won’t be able to continue with their English, but he can now read and write in English and Spanish. I lived in Gibraltar for a time when I was younger and I learnt Spanish in school then. Then I began having lessons about six months before we arrived here and I can now read and write in Spanish. The only way to do it is to chuck yourself in at the deep end.”
Nicholas and Helen Scott, Begur
“Our daughter Zara comes along when I go to teach English, so she’s speaking Catalan at nursery and effectively having formal English lessons which reinforce what she learns at home. Later she’ll pick up Spanish, so she’ll be trilingual with no real effort. I don’t think we’ll ever really master Catalan but we’re trying. We do know how to say ‘what a lovely, sunny day’ in three languages though.”