Learning Spanish Grammar

Spanish grammar nightmare

Did you ever wonder why do English speakers find learning Spanish grammar so difficult? If fact, Spanish grammar is the single biggest reason why so many people drop off from their Spanish language classes. To learn to speak Spanish in a correct way is a lot of work.

Let's be honest: it is not necessary to learn the grammar in order to learn to speak Spanish. So many people decide to learn Spanish language by immersing themselves in the culture of Mexico or Guatemala and after a month or so are able to get by in any Spanish speaking country. But, do we really want to be seen as uneducated hicks who can use only present tense and use all verbs in infinitive only? Spending a month in a Guatemalan village means that you will speak Spanish language like, well, Guatemalan farmer. While it is a great start, to learn to speak Spanish language in order to conduct a polite educated conversation with another educated Spanish speaking person, learning Spanish grammar is a must.

Rules, rules, rules

Spanish language belongs to the family of Romance languages, which use Latin alphabet and are generally based on the Latin grammar. If you were forced to learn Latin in your fancy private school, you will be grateful that you were, because you will already know most of what you need to know in order to master the grammar of Spanish language. You will know that all nouns have a gender (masculine, feminine and neutral) and that each noun has one. The simplest way to learn this is to simply learn each new noun together with its gender, without wondering why is "la cabeza" (head) feminine and "el pie" (foot) masculine.

Conjugations and declinations are the rules for changing Spanish verbs and nouns depending on their use. Lot of rules to learn, but it is just hard work and once you learn them, you will speak perfect grammatically correct Spanish language.

And then there are adjectives. They change constantly, depending on the noun, its gender and number. "Good" can be bueno, buena, buenas and buenos.

Pronunciation, but where?

If you have a good ear, you will be able to grasp the way Spanish pronounce words fairly easily, just by listening. Except that they do not pronounce words the same in all Spanish speaking countries. The biggest difference is what is in Spanish called "distinction" or "seseo". It is the way people in different countries pronounce 's'. For example, people in Northern Spain pronounce 'casa' (house) as 'catha', while in most other Spanish speaking countries it is pronounced as 'casa.' This is just one of the many differences between the Castilian Spanish, spoken in Spain, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, and the Spanish spoken in other Spanish speaking countries.

Life without rules

If all these rules look like a lot of hard work, talk to any Spanish language speaker who had to learn English. They find it totally exasperating that English does not have enough rules and that they simply have to learn the whole phrases. Can you try to explain to any Spanish language speaker why it is not correct to say "I no see him" or "I not saw him"?

Want more?

Check out our article titled Are you trying to learn Spanish?