Learn Spanish Fast – Easy Beginner Course

Bienvenidos. Welcome to Spanish class. We are going to learn the Spanish alphabet, the vowels, accents, and we're going to learn about how we greet people. We're going to cover the months of the year in Espanol and the days of the week, how to tell time in Spanish. We're going to learn about definite articles, indefinite articles, noun-adjective agreement, and we are going to learn who star with nouns, and the verb ser, and the verb estar, possessive adjectives, and the verb tener, how to conjugate regular verbs, and we are going to learn e to ie stem changers, and o to ue, and e to i stem changers. Let's get started. The Spanish alphabet. Let's start with the basics. We'll start with the letter a. The letter a, actually, the name of it and the pronunciation are the same thing. The name in Spanish is ah, and the letter a is pronounced ah, like in father, and the a in Spanish always makes the ah sound, so if you ever see this letter in a Spanish word, it's pronounced ah. We have the letter b, which the letter name is be, and it's pronounced just like the b in English, but it's a little softer. The letter c is called se in Spanish, and it's pronounced the same as it is in English, ch. This is considered a letter in the Spanish alphabet, and it's called che, che, and this is pronounced just like it is in English, like in church. The letter d in Spanish is titled de, and it sounds just like the English d, da. The letter e is titled eh, and it's also pronounced eh, like an egg, and this is probably the hardest vowel for students because there's so many words in English that have an e on the end that we don't pronounce, but in Spanish, you always pronounce your vowels, even if they're at the end of a word. The letter f is efe in Spanish, and it sounds just like the f sound in English. The letter g that makes a ga sound, like in the word gato, which is cat, if it's followed by an e or an i, it sounds like the letter ha, h in Spanish. For example, the letter ge is pronounced he, he. It sounds like a regular ga, unless it's followed by an e or an i, then it sounds like our English h. This letter name is pronounced ache. You notice I don't say that h at the beginning? Ache. The word hello in Spanish is spelled hola, and it's pronounced hola, hola. The letter i. The letter name and pronunciation here are the same as well, and it's pronounced e, e. So if you see that letter i, make sure it makes an e sound. Next up, we have the letter j. This is interesting. While the Spanish h is silent, the Spanish j makes a h sound, like our English h, but it's very strong. That's why this name of the letter is titled jota, jota. K sounds just like it does in English. The l also sounds just like it does in English, la, and it's pronounced le, le. Double l is actually considered its own letter because it makes its own sound. The pronunciation of the double l is a ya, like a y in English, and so the letter name is ay, ay. The m is pronounced ma. That's the name of the letter, and it sounds just like it does in English. The n also sounds exactly like it does in English, and its letter name is ma. Now here's an extra letter, n-ya. The letter name pronounced n-ya, can-ya. Now the o in Spanish is the same in English, but it's much crisper and quick. In Spanish, if you see an o, it's a quick o. The letter p is pe, and it's pronounced just like it is in English. Q, the letter name is cu, cu. And you'll never see a q in Spanish that's not followed by a u. So there's always a u after q. Now the letter r is pronounced er, right? And it's just a little softer than it is in English. If an r begins the word, it makes the double r sound. So if you ever see two r's together, it makes a r sound, and also if an r starts a name or a word. The letter s is ese, t is te. It also sounds like it does in English, it's just a little softer. The u is u, very short, u. Now the letter v in Spanish sounds just like the b in Spanish, so it's pronounced be. Now the letter w, it's called doble be, which means double v, and it's pronounced just like it is in English. Now the letter x, the name of this letter is equis, equis. It's at the beginning of a word, sounds like an s. But any other time, it makes an h sound, like an English h sound. For example, the country Mexico, Mexico is how we say it in English, but in Spanish, Mexico. Now the letter y, it makes the normal ya sound like it does in English, unless it's at the end of a word. Or if it's its own word, then it sounds like the vowel i. Now in Spanish, remember the i makes an e sound. So the way that we pronounce this letter name is y griega, y griega. And our last letter is z. Now first off, there's no z sound in Spanish. You'll never make a z. Instead, the z makes a s like an English s. So the letter name is pronounced seta, seta. The vowels, as you've already seen, the English vowels are the same as the Spanish vowels. You've got a, e, i, o, and u. In English, vowels can have many different sounds. In Spanish, every vowel has one sound. Now it's very important that you memorize the vowel sound I'm going to teach you in a moment. And every time that you see these vowels in the Spanish word, you pronounce them correctly. The letter a is pronounced ah. The letter e is pronounced eh, eh. The letter i is e, e. The letter o is oh. And the letter u is u, u. All the vowels are very crisp. Ah, eh, e, oh, u. One simple, straight, crisp sound. Accents. So first off, an accent mark in Spanish simply shows us where to put emphasis on a word. I want you to practice putting emphasis where the accent mark is located in the word. So let's look at this word, biology, in Spanish. Notice that it has an accent mark over the last i. So we're going to pronounce it, bi-o-lo-hi-a. Do you hear that emphasis? Bi-o-lo-hi-a. Hurricane. Hurricane. Hurricane. And last one, the word for heart. Corazón. Corazón. Now sometimes you're going to find words that have accent marks, like the word el can have an accent mark, or the word si can have an accent mark. But that's not to show emphasis. Instead, it's simply differentiating between two words. The word el with an accent mark means he. But there's also the word el with no accent mark that means the. And so when you say el, for he, it's just el. It's not pronounced any differently. The accent just shows us that it means he instead of the. Same word for si. Si with an accent mark is different than si without the accent mark. All right, si with an accent mark means yes. And si without the accent mark means if. Practice putting that emphasis where the accent mark is, and your pronunciation in Spanish will get very good, very quickly. We're going to learn about how we greet people. In Spanish, the word for hello is hola. Hola. Remember that h is silent. Hola. Buenos dias is good morning or good day. Buenos dias. Buenas tardes is good afternoon. Buenas tardes. And buenas noches is good night. Buenas noches. Buenas noches, though, can be a greeting. It's just like saying hello. If it's the evening or night time, you'll hear buenas a lot. More casual way to say hello or what's up is que tal. Que tal. If you're meeting someone for the first time and you want to ask their name, there's a few different ways to do this. Like asking what do you call yourself, which is a different way of asking what's your name. The familiar way to ask that in Spanish is como te llamas. Como te llamas. And the formal version of this is como se llama. Como se llama. In Spanish, it's very, very common for them to ask what do you call yourself. And so you'll want to get used to saying como te llamas or como se llama and remembering it's what do you call yourself. It's not technically asking what is your name. So como te llamas is what we'd use if we're talking to someone our own age or younger. And como se llama is what you'd use if you're talking to someone older than you that you show respect to. Now to say I call myself, the way to answer this question is me llamo. Me llamo. So it's not my name is, it's I call myself. The next one is cual es tu nombre, which does technically ask what is your name. Now I've got tu versus su because cual es tu nombre is the familiar way to ask that. And cual es su nombre is the formal. Cual es tu nombre. Cual es su nombre. And if you don't like answering me llamo for I call myself, you can technically say my name is, which is mi nombre es. Mi nombre es. To ask who is that, like who is he or who is she, we'd ask quien es. Quien es. To answer that question you could say el es or ella es. El es means he is. Ella es means she is. The familiar way to ask how are you is como estas. Como estas. If you want to ask someone formally how are you, someone older than you, we would ask como esta usted. Now there are many ways to answer this question in English and in Spanish. Simply put to say I am, when you're talking about how you're feeling, you would use estoy. So we could say estoy bien for I'm good or I'm fine. To say I'm bad you could say estoy mal, I'm not doing good. You could say estoy mas o menos. Now mas o menos technically means more or less, but it's just a way of saying I'm okay. If you're really good you can say estoy muy bien. Muy bien. The next question is and how are you? So the word y tu means and you. So the y tu is the familiar way to ask and the y usted is the formal. The familiar way to say where are you from is de donde eres tu. Sometimes that tu will be left off and it's just de donde eres. De donde eres. The formal way to ask it is de donde es usted. De donde es usted. The answer to that question I'm from is soy de. Soy de. Saying goodbye. Adios is the way to say goodbye in Spanish. Adios. Another way is buenas noches, which we saw earlier. Buenas noches means good night. It could be a greeting or a farewell. Buenas noches. Hasta luego means see you later. Hasta luego. Or hasta mañana means see you tomorrow or until tomorrow. Hasta mañana. Of the year in Spanish. January is enero. February is febrero. March is marzo. April is abril. May is mayo. June is junio. July is julio. August is agosto. September is septiembre. October is octubre. November is noviembre. And December is diciembre. Before we get started you need to know there's a difference between calendars that we use in the U.S. versus calendars that are used in many Spanish-speaking countries in the United States. Our calendars run from Sunday through Saturday. With that in mind we are going to learn the days of the week. Monday is lunes. Tuesday is martes. Wednesday is miércoles. Thursday is jueves. Friday is viernes. Saturday is sábado. Sunday is domingo. How to tell time in Spanish. In order to ask what time it is in Spanish you will ask qué hora es. When you tell time in Spanish you will use the verb ser. You use es when it is one o'clock to say it is one o'clock. Es la una. However with all the other times and numbers and hours you'll use son las. Like it's two o'clock is son las dos. It's three o'clock son las tres. In Spanish we divide the clock into two parts. If your minute hand is running on the right side of the clock anywhere between the 12 and the 6 you would use the word y for and to talk about the minute hand. For instance it is 3 20. Son las 3 y 20. However there are two words in Spanish that we never use when telling time. One of those is the number 15. To say it is 15 you say son las tres y cuarto. Cuarto means quarter. So instead of saying it's three fifteen you say it's three and a quarter. Son las tres y cuarto. So always make sure to use cuarto in place of 15. Quince. Another number that we cannot use when telling time in Spanish is 30. You would not say it's 30. You would say son las tres y media. Media means half. So it's like saying it's three and a half. Son las tres y media. Now let's talk about the left hand of this clock. If your minute hand is running from the 6 up to the 12 so anywhere between 31 and 59 you will use the word menos which means minus. Two fifty five. So you would say it is three o'clock minus five minutes. It's like saying it's five minutes until three. And that is son las tres menos cinco. Another example it is two forty five. It's like you're saying it's a quarter until three. It's three o'clock minus a quarter. Son las tres menos cuarto. You have to replace quince with cuarto. One more thing. You don't usually say a.m. or p.m. in Spanish. If you want to specify what time of day you're talking about you would use de la mañana in the morning, de la tarde in the afternoon, and de la noche for in the nighttime or at night. So make sure that you use these instead of saying a.m. or p.m. when you're specifying what time of day you're talking about. The Spanish subject pronouns. A pronoun is a word that replaces a proper noun such as he, she, it, we, they, you, I. When the pronoun is the subject or the person doing the action it becomes a subject pronoun. An example in the sentence Bob is swimming. Bob is our subject. Replace Bob with the word he. He is swimming. He is our subject pronoun. So let's take a look at the Spanish subject pronouns. So in English I which is our first person singular pronoun is yo in Spanish. Yo. We. Nosotros. And then we also have nosotras. Nosotras. The word you in Spanish is tú. Tú. The word vosotros which means you plural. The word vosotros is only used in Spain and so we're not going to practice with it. The word he is el. El. She is ella. You formal. Usted. Usted. The word they again there's two options ellos and ellas. Ellos. Ellas. You plural is ustedes. So our word yo means I and it's used the same way as in English. The word tú. Tú means you. So does the word usted. Usted also means you. Now the word tú means you in a familiar way or an informal way. The word usted is a formal you. We use tú when we're talking to family members. When we're talking to our friends or our peers. Or when we're talking to someone younger. But if we want to show respect to someone we use the word usted and this means a formal you. If you're talking to an elder someone older than you or if you're talking to a stranger to an authority figure like a policeman or a doctor or the word el means he. Don't forget the accent mark. Accent over the e is so important because if you leave the accent out the word el with no accent means the. Ella. She and it's used just like it is in English. Both of these words mean we. If the word we includes all males that we would be nosotros. However if you've got males and females in a group you still have to use nosotros. The only time that we're going to use nosotras is if that we is only females. Both ellos means they and ellas means they. Now the ellos is when we're talking about all boys or if we're talking about both male and female in a group. The only time we use ellas is if just like the nosotros and nosotras. The last part is ustedes. Ustedes is used when we're talking to a group of people. So if you're addressing more than one person and you are saying you all we would use ustedes. There are four words in Spanish that mean the. We have el, la, los and las. Use el when you are saying the in front of a masculine singular word. You would use lo to say the when you are describing a masculine plural word. You would say la or the when you were talking about a feminine singular word and you would use las to describe a feminine plural word. First off nouns all have gender. They're either masculine or feminine. All nouns are either masculine or feminine. El chico is masculine the boy. La chica is feminine the girl. So how do you know if a word is masculine or feminine? Usually the final vowel of a noun tells you whether it's masculine or feminine. Nouns ending in o are usually masculine. Therefore you would use el if it's a singular word or los if it's a plural word. For example el chico is the boy. El muchacho is the man. Nouns that end in a are usually feminine and they would use feminine articles then like la if it's singular or las if it's plural. Some examples here are la chica the girl. La muchacha the woman. These nouns never change their gender. If a noun is feminine it's always feminine. If a noun is masculine it's always masculine. Nouns ending in e like hombre or a consonant like mujer can be either masculine or feminine. You just have to learn these individually. Example el sueter that is masculine. El calcetín. La clase the class is feminine. La televisión the television is feminine. Nouns are not only marked for gender like masculine and feminine as we see in our chart They're also marked for number singular or plural. Singular is when you have one item. Plural is when there's more than one. There's an s on the word. For example the door is la puerta. The doors is las puertas. There are four ways to say a or some in Spanish. Un, una, unos, and unas. Un is the masculine singular way to say a. Unos is the masculine plural way to say a or some. Una is the feminine singular way to say a. Unas is the feminine plural way to say a or some. These rules that we just learned about definite articles are the same for indefinite articles. Un chico would be a boy. Una chica would be a girl. Unos chicos would be some boys. Unas chicas would be some girls. If you follow the masculine feminine rules and singular and plural rules you will always know which one of these words to use to say a or d if you're talking about indefinite articles. Noun adjective agreement. Adjectives are words that describe nouns. In English the adjective almost always comes before the noun. Like the serious student. Serious is an adjective describing students the noun. So the adjectives comes first. But in Spanish the adjective comes after the noun. We would say estudiantes serios. In Spanish the noun always comes before the adjective. Like estudiantes serios. Now we've already covered how articles must match nouns by gender and number. Adjectives also must match their noun by gender and number. For example el chico alto. El and chico and alto are all three words that are masculine and singular. So they match. If you want to say the tall boys you not only have to add an s to chicos. You have to add an s to your article and say los chicos. And you also have to add an s to the word tall to say altos. So los chicos altos are now all masculine and plural. They all end in os. So they all match. La and chica and alta will all need to end in an a because they're all feminine and singular. And to say the tall girls you would need to add an s to all three of these words. The article the noun and the adjective to create las chicas altas. This way they're all feminine and plural so they all match. Adjectives that end in e match both genders. The word inteligente is gender neutral. It can describe a teacher that's a man like el maestro inteligente or a teacher that's a woman la maestra inteligente. Same thing for many adjectives that end in a consonant like the word joven young. That can describe a friend that's a boy el amigo joven or a friend that's a girl la amiga joven. Trabajador is not gender neutral. If you want to make trabajador feminine you must add an a to it. So el chico trabajador is the hard-working boy. La chica trabajadora is the hard-working girl. Some examples. The first example we have la chica es baja. The girl is short. Since chica is the noun we're describing and chica ends in an a it is feminine. We must use la for the word be which is feminine and baja must be feminine as well. So la and chica and baja are all feminine singular words. They all match. Number two. El maestro es serio. The teacher is serious. We're talking about a male and masculine word maestro so we use the masculine word for be and we make serio. We leave that masculine as well so now el maestro and serio are all masculine singular words. Number three. La mujer es artística. We have a word that does not end in an a but mujer is still feminine so we still use la for the feminine singular word for be and we change artístico to artística to make it feminine as well. So la mujer es artística. The woman is artistic. Gustar. Gustar means to be pleasing. In Spanish they don't say I like to eat pizza. They say to eat pizza is pleasing to me. In English we don't go around saying that things are pleasing to us. We just say I like but keep in mind technically me gusta means something is pleasing to me. So me gusta technically means something is pleasing me but in English that's how we say I like. Te gusta technically means something is pleasing to you but in English we say you like. Le gusta technically means something is pleasing to him her it or you formal but in English we say he she or you like. No gusta technically means something is pleasing to us but in English we say we like and le gusta means something is pleasing to y'all or they. In other words in English we say they or y'all like. Gustar with infinitives. Infinitives are verbs in Spanish that end in ar er or ir. They are not conjugated. Like hablar is to talk. Aprender is to learn. We use gustar to talk about what people like or do not like to do. An example is me gusta comer pizza which is a way to say I like to eat pizza but technically speaking it means to eat pizza is pleasing to me. Subjects with gustar if you want to emphasize or identify the person that you're talking about with the verb gustar you absolutely have to put an ah in front of your subject. So me gusta is all you need by itself you're saying something is pleasing to me but if you want to make a real emphasis like for me I like you can add a me to say for you you like say a ti te gusta. It's not necessary. Since le gusta can mean he likes or she likes or it likes or usted likes you do need to include your subject but make sure you put an ah in front of it. So a usted le gusta means for you you like. A el le gusta that means for him something is pleasing him. Nos gusta just means something is pleasing us. You don't need that subject there it's just optional. Les gusta you need either a ustedes or a ellos in front to specify who you're talking about. Some examples no nos gusta estudiar if you want to make anything negative or say that you don't like to do something just add a no in front of the me gusta te gusta le gusta nos gusta or les gusta. So this means studying is not pleasing to us and then the question te gusta beber agua is drinking water pleasing to you? Gustar with nouns. We have learned about the verb gustar and how to use it to talk about things that we like to do. We know how to put a verb after gusta but you can also use nouns and here's where our new rule comes in. When you're using gustar with nouns if your noun is singular you leave gusta alone just like we've been doing like me gusta la pizza. This means the pizza pleases me. Pizza is singular you're still saying it pleases me. If you have a noun after gusta that is plural you must add an in. For example me gusta las uvas. This is because you're saying the grapes please me and when we conjugate ar verbs for the they form we kick off the ar we add the an and that's the reason you have to add an in all right because you're saying they please me or they please you. So if you have a noun that comes after gusta and that noun is plural you must use me gustan, te gustan, le gustan, nos gustan or les gusta. We are going to learn the verb ser. We first must know that we use the verb ser to identify people like I am a teacher and to say where people are from like she is from the United States. Yo soy. Tu eres is you are. Tu eres. Now the he she and you formal always share a conjugation el es ella es and ustedes which means you are but it's formal. Nosotros somos means we are ellos and ellas and ustedes also always share a verb conjugation so ellos and ellas son means they are and ustedes son. You're going to have to memorize these five conjugations soy, eres, es, somos, son. So let's look at some examples here. Yo soy de los Estados Unidos. Tu eres Enrique. El es Pablo. Ella es de los Estados Unidos. Usted es el principal. You are the principal. Enrique y yo somos de los Estados Unidos. The verb estar. Estar is very similar to our verb ser. They both mean to be. In English we only have one verb that means to be. In Spanish there's two ways to say I am. There's two ways to say you are etc because ser means to be and estar means to be. The reason there are two verbs that mean the same exact thing is because they're used for different reasons. For example we use our verb ser to talk about permanent characteristics. Characteristics are things that describe who you are, what make your personality up. An example sentence is yo soy inteligente. The second thing we use ser to talk about is origin or where someone is from. Estar is used to talk about two different things. Number one, estar is used to talk about location where something or someone is located like yo estoy en la escuela. I am at school. The second thing we use the verb estar to talk about is temporary condition. This means emotional or physical condition. Emotions or how you feel. For example an emotion would be I am sad. A physical condition would be something like I am sick. Yo estoy is how we say I am. Tú estás means you are. Él, ella, usted está. He is, she is or usted you formal are. Nosotros estamos is we are and ellos, ellas or ustedes están. They are or y'all are. Some examples to show you how to use estar. Yo estoy muy emocionada. I am very excited. Tú estás en la clase de español. You are in Spanish class. Number three, la biblioteca está al lado del baño. The library is next to the bathroom. Miguel y yo estamos en la cine. Miguel and I we are in the movie theater. Ustedes están ocupados. Y'all are busy. The review of the verb ser and the verb estar. We know that the verb ser means to be. We know it's conjugations. Yo soy is I am. Tú eres is you are. Él, ella, usted es is he or she or is. Nosotros somos is we are. Ellos, ellas, ustedes son is they or y'all are. However ser is not the only verb that means to be. Estar also means to be. When you conjugate it, it means the same translations. Yo estoy is also I am. Tú estás is also you are. Él, ella, usted está is he or she is. Nosotros estamos is we are. Ellos, ellas or ustedes están is they or y'all are. So here's the difference. We use the verb ser to talk about things that are more permanent. For example, your origin or where you're from. Origin is something that never changes. No matter how many times you move, you're always going to be from the same place. We use ser to talk about our characteristics. Now characteristics are things that help define who we are. They can be physical characteristics or things that describe who you are on the inside. We also use ser to talk about profession, which means like your career. Like ustedes son una maestra. You are a teacher. Estar on the other hand can be used to talk about location. So people's location tends to change. Any kind of location, whether it's a permanent location or something that's moving around, you use the verb estar. Now emotion or condition of people. You think about how you feel throughout the day. Sometimes you feel happy, sad, excited, nervous. Any of those things that just define how you feel in the moment can be considered an emotion. Ellos están emocionados. They are excited. Some examples. Yo estoy en la clase de español. I am in Spanish class. That's location. So we use estar. Tú eres muy atlético. You are very athletic. So we use ser because athletic is a characteristic. Ella es bonita. She is pretty. Nosotros somos de los Estados Unidos. We are from the United States. So we use ser because it's about origin. Ustedes están muy cansados. Y'all are very tired. Tired is a condition. So we use estar. Ellos son muy buenos médicos. Y'all are very good doctors. So that's profession. Possessive adjectives. So possessive adjectives allow us to show possession. While there are nine possessive adjectives in English, there are only four in Spanish. And so here they are. The word my is me. The word your is tú. Now tú is very similar to the word you in Spanish, but there's a slight difference. If tú has an accent over the you, that means you. If it does not, it means your. Nuestro means our and su means all the rest. So su can mean his, her, its, your formal, their, or y'alls. Possessive adjectives have to match the noun they are describing. If you have something like my house, since casa is singular, you get to leave me singular. Mi casa. But if you have my houses, since casas has an s on it and it's plural, you have to add an s to me to make it plural as well. And that way, mis casas match their endings. We're matching the ending of our noun to our possessive adjective. Same thing with tu casa would be your house. Tus casas would be your houses. Su casa can mean many different things. It could be his house, her house, its house, their house, y'alls house. But if you're saying houses, sus casas can mean her houses, his houses, their houses, y'alls houses, etc. Now so far with me, tú, and su, we've only worried about whether the word is singular or plural. Whether you need to add an s or not. You don't have to worry about gender because those are gender neutral. However, nuestro, it ends in an o, so it is not gender neutral. For the word nuestro, you have to worry about whether the word is masculine or feminine, singular or plural. Like libro ends in an o, so nuestro libro matches to say our book. If you want to say our books, libros ends in an os, so nuestros must match it. Nuestros libros. Casa, if you want to say our house, since casa ends in an a, you'd have to say nuestra casa. Since casa, the noun is feminine and singular, nuestra has to be feminine and singular as well. So it doesn't matter who the owner is, it's what's being owned. And if you want to say our houses, casas ends in an as, so nuestras casas also has to be feminine and plural. The verb tener. Yo tengo. I have. Tú tienes. You have. Él, ella, usted which is he has, she has, or you have. Nosotros tenemos is we have, and ellos, ellas, ustedes tienen is they have or y'all have. So again, tengo, tienes, tiene, tenemos, and tienen. Some examples, yo tengo un perro. Tú tienes un gato. Él tiene una buena nota. He has a good grade. We have a large class. Tener is not only used to talk about things that we have or possess, but you can also talk about things that one has to do. The formula is tener plus que plus infinitive is a formula used to talk about things one has to do. Tener, we just learned how to conjugate it, so when we're using this formula, you'll use either tengo, tienes, tiene, tenemos, or tienen. Que goes in the middle, and then an infinitive verb comes afterward. Examples, yo tengo que estudiar. I have to study. Tengo is our tener, there is our que, and estudiar is our infinitive, and that means I have to study. Pablo tiene que comer fruta means Pablo has to eat fruit. Tiene is our tener, then our que comes after the tener, and finally comer is our infinitive. So remember, you can use tener to talk about things that you have and possess, or you can put it in this formula to talk about things that you have to do. The verb ir. Ir is an ir verb, it's spelled just ir, but it is an irregular verb that just have to be memorized. So ir is the infinitive, and ir means to go. The conjugations of ir are as follows. Yo voy is how we say I go or I'm going. Tu vas is you go or you're going. El, ella, or usted va is how we say he goes, she goes, or you formal go. Nosotros vamos is we go, and ellos or ustedes van is they go or y'all go. That's what you need to know when you know the verb ir. You have to have those memorized. Voy, vas, va, vamos, and van. The way that we can use the verb ir to talk about where we are going is to conjugate it correctly and then add a or al plus the place you are going. A stands for to, like I'm going to the party. We would say yo voy a la fiesta. However, if you're going to go to a place that is masculine, like el parque, when you have a and el together, you form the word al. So if I'm saying I'm going to the park, I would say yo voy al parque. Adonde vas mañana? When you have a and el together, they mush into that one word al. For example, yo voy al medico. Yo voy al hotel. I'm going to the hotel. Yo voy al dentista. I'm going to the dentist. Adonde van ustedes? If you ever have a and la together in a sentence, they never mush. They can stay separate. For example, we are going to the female doctor. Nosotros vamos a la medica. We are going to the library. Nosotros vamos a la biblioteca. We are going to the city. Nosotros vamos a la ciudad. Adonde is the word that we must use when you're asking someone where are you going. In English, we just say where are you going. In Spanish, the word where is just donde. But in Spanish, if you're going to use the verb ir, and you want to ask somebody where are you going, you actually have to ask to where are you going, and that is adonde. So always use adonde and ir together when you are asking to where are you going. Like adonde vamos mañana? To where are we going tomorrow? Adonde is different than donde. Keep in mind adonde means to where. We always use that with ir, like to where are we going? But donde is just a simple word where. You usually use that when you're asking about someone or something's specific location. Like where is Pablo? Adonde esta Pablo? So keep in mind these are very different. Adonde is used, we're talking about the verb ir, and donde is used just for the simple word where. Some examples, adonde va el hoy? To where is he going today? El va a la escuela. He is going to the school. Adonde va usted hoy? To where are you going today? Yo voy a la fiesta. How to conjugate regular AR verbs. Most verbs in Spanish are regular verbs. First step for conjugating AR verbs is to take off the ending. You must know that every verb has two parts, a stem and an ending. The ending is always the last two letters. So the ending of AR verbs is always AR. For example, the verb mirar, if you take off the AR, you're left with the stem mir. This is all part of that first step. No matter what verb it is, if it ends in AR, the first step for conjugating is taking off that AR. The second step deals with then adding the ending for AR verbs. And you have an ending for each subject pronoun. The endings for the yo form are o. The endings for the tú form are as. The endings for the el, ella, usted form are a. The endings for the nosotros form are amos. And the endings for the are an. So you need to memorize these endings. O, as, a, amos, an. When you have those memorized, then it's easy. For instance, hablar is the verb to talk. Yo hablo means I talk or I'm talking. Tú hablas means you talk. El, ella, usted habla. He talks or she talks or you formal talk. Nosotros hablamos is we talk or we're talking. Ellos ustedes hablan, which means they talk or y'all talk. Another example would be estudiar. Estudio is I study. Tú estudias is you study. Él estudia is he studies. Nosotros estudiamos is we study. And ellos estudian is they or y'all study. A few examples of some AR verbs. It's easy to conjugate AR verbs. You just have to remember those endings. O, as, a, amos, an. O to UE and E to I stem changers. O to UE. These are just like E to I stem changers, except in the stem you change an O to a UE. For example, with the verb poder, which means to be able or can. Let's take off the ending. You're left with pod. Change that O in the stem to a UE in all the forms except nosotros. And then add your ER endings. O, as, a, amos, an. You've got puedo, puedes, puede, podemos, and pueden. Common O to UE stem changer verbs that you need to memorize. Almorzar is to eat lunch. Dormir is to sleep. Encontrar is to find. Volver is to return. Examples. Yo almuerzo a las 12 todos los días. Is I eat lunch every day at 12. Tú puedes ir al cine esta noche. You can go to the movies tonight. La blusa cuesta 20 euros. The blouse cost 20 euros. Nosotros encontramos el restaurante. We find the restaurant. Todos los estudiantes duermen muchas horas. All the students sleep many hours. E to I stem changers. E to I stem changers follow all the same rules as the other stem changers we've learned, but there are only three. Servir is to serve. Pedir is to order or ask for. Here's how these are conjugated. Just like regular stem changers, you take off the IR endings. You're left with the stem. You change that E to an I in all the forms but nosotros. So that gives you pido, pides, pide, pedimos, and piden. Direct object pronouns. A direct object pronoun, also known as DOP, answers the question what. You is our subject, by is our verb, and you by what? The cake. The cake is our direct object pronoun. En español, that's tú compras el pastel. We read the books. The books is what we're reading. So that's our direct object pronoun in Spanish. That's nosotros leemos libros. The direct object pronouns can also answer who. So me would replace me. They would replace you. Lo would replace any direct object that is masculine. And la would replace any direct object that is feminine. Nos would replace we. And then los would replace any direct object that is feminine in plural. So how do we use these direct object pronouns? So in English, a direct object pronoun, instead of saying you buy the cake, we would change the cake to it. The cake is el pastel. It has an L in front of it, so we know that it's masculine, and there's only one, so it's singular. So we would use the lo version of our direct object pronoun. And you always have to put the direct object pronoun in front of the verb. Tú lo compras means you buy it, referring to the cake. Second example, we had we read books. The word los matches books, because libros are plural, and they are masculine. And so we change, we read them to nosotros los leemos. We use direct object pronouns a lot for answering questions. For example, if someone asks you who answers the telephone? Quien contesta el teléfono? I can say I answer it. Yo lo contesto. Who reads the books? Quien lee los libros? Same thing here, instead of saying she reads the books, we can say she reads them. Ella los lee. But there are three types of verbs in Spanish. AR verbs are those verbs that end in AR. ER verbs are verbs that end in ER. And IR verbs are verbs that end in IR. To conjugate ER verbs, you kick off the ER and you add the appropriate endings. ER verb endings are o, es, e, emos, en. Follow these in the same order as always. So the yo form goes with o, the tu form goes with es, the el, ella, usted form goes with e, the nosotros form goes with emos, and the ellos, ustedes form goes with en. For example, yo como is I eat, tu comes is you eat, el come is he eats, nosotros comemos is we eat, and ellos comen is they eat. The only difference between ER verbs and AR verbs is you use a's for AR verbs, where you use e's for ER verbs. Everything else is the same. So if you've got your AR verb endings down, you already know your ER verb endings. It's very simple. Now for IR verbs. To conjugate an IR verb, you drop off the IR and you add the appropriate ending. For IR verbs, the yo form goes with o, tu form goes with es, el, ella, usted form goes with e, the nosotros form goes with emos, and the ellos, ustedes form goes with en. For example, yo abro is I open, tu abres is you open, el abre is he opens, nosotros abrimos is we open, and ellos abren is they open. The only difference between ER verb and IR verb endings are just that nosotros form. Everything else is exactly the same. Practice. To say I eat the pizza, you would say yo como la pizza, you drink a lot of water, you would say tu bebes mucho agua, she shares the food, we would say ella comparte la comida, we read the books, we would say nosotros leemos los libros, they sell chocolate. Indirect object pronouns. So let's first talk about what indirect objects are. The indirect object answers the question to whom or for whom. We have we read books. So which one of those words is the direct object? What is being read? The books. And the books are to whom or for whom? To the students. So los estudiantes is our indirect object. Nosotros leemos libros a los estudiantes. Our indirect object pronouns are me, te, le, nos, and les. So me would take the place of the word me if I was the indirect object. Te would replace the word you. Les replaces any singular noun. It's gender neutral, it can be masculine or feminine. Nos replaces the word we. And les replaces any plural noun. Let's talk about how to utilize these. You buy the cake for your friend. Your friend needs to be replaced or matched up with an indirect object pronoun. We would use le since it's singular. And so you had two le compras. Just like with our direct object pronouns, it always has to come before the verb. She has a dog for her mother. Her mother again is the IOP. You have to match it with one of those indirect object pronouns. You would match it with le. They talk to us. We would be matched with nos. So ellos nos hablan a nosotros. And in Spanish, you're going to see this a lot. You're just going to have an extra indirect object pronoun placed in a sentence even when it doesn't seem necessary. But you can use indirect object pronouns to make your sentences shorter and simpler. So our first example, we had you buy the cake for your friend. We can take out para tu amigo since we do have our indirect object pronoun here. So tu le compras el pastel. That was understood to say you buy the cake for him. She has a dog for her mom. We can take out para su madre. Replace that with le. And now you're saying she has a dog for her. And finally, ellos nos hablan a nosotros. We can take out that a nosotros. Replace it with nos. And that means they are talking to us. E to IE stem changers. These are also called boot verbs. First need to understand verbs have stems and endings. If you take off the ending, which is always the last two letters, either AR, ER, or IR, you are left with the stem. Like the verb querer, if you remove that ending, you're left with the stem, Q-U-E-R. For preferir, if you remove the ending, you're left with prefer, which is the stem. When stem changing verbs are conjugated, you not only change the ending, but you must also change the E in the stem to the IE. And you do this in every form except the nosotros form. Here you can see an example of how this has been done. Querer is a verb that means to want. It is a stem changer. If you conjugate the ending regularly, take off the ER, you've got your O-S-E-M-O-S-N. But the extra step is to take the E in the stem and change it to IE in all of the forms except nosotros. So yo quiero is I want, tu quieres is you want, el quiere is he wants, nosotros queremos is we want, and ellos quieren is they want. To conjugate a stem changer, the first step is to find the stem. So you kick off the AR instead of R, you're left with C-E-R-R. Second step, change the E to an IE in the stem for all the forms except nosotros and conjugate the verb with the regular endings. Yo cierro, tu cierras, el, ella, usted cierra, nosotros cerramos, ellos, ustedes cierran. Common E to IE verbs. Cerar is to close, empezar is to begin, entender is to understand, pensar is to think, perder is to lose, preferir is to prefer, querer is to want, and sugerir is to suggest. Yo prefiero el café con leche is I prefer the coffee with milk, mi padre nunca cierra la puerta is my father never shuts the door, nosotros entendemos todo el español is we understand all the Spanish, and ustedes empiezan el examen a las tres is y'all begin the test at three. Remember, drop your ending, change your stem, add your correct ending for the conjugation, and that's how you do stem changers.