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Spanish Class 1

A foreign language can open a whole new world of opportunities for you. With the world as one single marketplace, look at all the new customers, friends, acquaintences you can know and talk to by knowing another language.

The biggest challenge in a language are the verbs. Spanish has 18 tenses but in practical "gringo" you can get by with 3 or 4. Another very important part of the spanish language are the pronouns.

Singular		Plural
Yo	I	Nosotros	We
tu	You (familiar)	Vosotros	You Plural (familiar) Used mainly in Spain so I will not use further
El	He, Him	Ellos	They,them (Male or Male and female)
Ella	She,Her	Ellas	They,them (all female)
Usted	You formal	Ustedes	You formal)

I know what you are thinking, familiar? formal? male? female?
Spanish has gender on everything. But as far as formal you think, Do I know the person well...familiar. If it is a stranger it would be more polite to use the formal. Or if a person deserving much respect it would be best to use formal. As far as gender goes it is difficult with many exceptions to the rule: if it ends in "a" it is female, if it ends in "O" is male. This is important because of the use of the articles "the", "a", "it" which have both gender and singular and plural.

Singular		Plural
la	the (fem)	las	the (fem)
el	the (m)	los	the (m)
una	a (fem)	unas	some (fem)
un	a (m)	unos	some (m)

Some common nouns and their articles.

Singular		Plural
la mesa	the table (fem)	las mesas	the tables (fem)
el libro	the book (m)	los libros	the books (m)
una cosa	a thing (fem)	unas cosas	some things (fem)
un a�o	a year (m)	unos a�os	some year(m)

Again, I know what you are thinking...What happened to the �? Well this letter is called sound it out (ninnnna) it is a soft n. A word will not be the right word if you leave it off ano is anus(a big difference). Like english there are many exceptions: mano=hand is (fem) problema problem(m) agua=water(m)

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