NOUNS

VERBS

INTERROGATIVES

CONJUNCTIONS

PREPOSITIONS

ADJECTIVES

Numbers 100-999.999

Pronunciation Notes

Regular -ar verbs

All Spanish verbs fall into one of three categories - they either end in ar, er, or ir. Within each category, there are regular and irregular verbs. Regular verbs all conjugate with a similar pattern - all the new verbs in this lesson are regular (as you'll see soon). Irregular verbs don't follow a pattern, and each verb's conjugation has to be memorized separately - the two verbs you learned in Lesson 2, ser and estar are irregular.

Here are the new verbs for this lesson: amar, escuchar, estudiar, hablar, necesitar, regresar, trabajar. These are all regular -ar verbs. Here are the present-tense (present indicative) conjugations of them all:

Regular verbs are made up of a body (habl), and a suffix (ar). To conjugate regular verbs, replace the infinitive suffix (ar, er, ir) with the correct conjugation suffix from the example conjugation for hablar above. For example, take amar, and conjugate it:

All verbs can be split into a body/suffix pair, but only regular verbs follow these patterns. There are 3 different regular-verb patterns - one for -ar verbs, one for -ir verbs, and one for -er verbs. (In the next lesson, we'll learn the rules for regular -er and -ir verbs.) In summary, to conjugate any regular -ar verb in the present (present indicative) tense, remove the -ar suffix, and add one of the following (depending on who is the subject of the verb):

Here are complete conjugations of 2 more verbs from this lesson:

trabajar

yo trabajo, tú trabajas, usted, él, ella trabaja, nosotros trabajamos, vosotros trabajáis, ustedes, ellos, ellas trabajan

regresar

yo regreso, tú regresas, usted, él, ella regresa, nosotros regresamos, vosotros regresáis, ustedes, ellos, ellas regresan

Now that we have the conjugation for these regular -ar verbs, we can make sentences with them, like this:

• Amo a Tanya. ("I love Tanya")
• Él trabaja en la universidad. ("He works at (in) the university")
• Nosotros escuchamos a la profesora. ("We listen to the teacher")
• Ellos estudian a las ocho. ("The men study at 8")
• Ellas hablan español. ("The women speak Spanish")
• Yo regreso a la universidad a las tres. ("I return to the university at 3 o'clock")
• ¿Estudias matemáticas? ("Do you study math?")
• ¿Necesita dinero ella? ("Does she need money?")

A - At or To, and the Personal A

In a few of the sentences above, the preposition a is used, as in Ellos estudian a las ocho. The preposition a translates to the English "at" or "to", depending on the sentence. The preceeding sentence ("ellos estudian...") is an example of a meaning "at". The sentence nosotros ecuchamos a la profesora is an example of a meaning "to". When the a comes before an el, as in nosotros escuchamos "a el" profesor, the a and the el combine to form al. So the correct way to write the preceeding sentence is: Nosotros escuchamos al profesor.

Note that the English "at" may translate to either a or en in Spanish, depending on the sentence. En is usually used to refer to something being at something else, such as estoy en la universidad - "I'm at the university". A usually refers to a state or condition (sort of) of something, such as "at great speed", or when referring to time, such as a la una ("at one o'clock").

In one sentence above, amo a Tanya, the a isn't either of the above two meanings. When a person or name of a place is the direct object of a verb (with the exception of the verb tener, "to have"), an a is placed before the object, as in amo a Tanya. This is known as the "personal a", and it is required. Some more examples of the personal a:

• La profesora llama a los estudiantes. ("The teacher calls the students")
• Ella ama a él. ("She loves him")

Numbers 100 to 999.999

If you've looked at the numbers in the New Words section, you may already have seen some patterns developing in Spanish numbers. First, the numbers 100, 200, 300, etc., all have a similar form - ciento, doscientos, trescientos... If you look carefully, and remember the numbers 2 through 9, you'll see that each hundred above 100 is just "two hundreds" (doscientos), "three hundreds" (trescientos), and so on. There are three exceptions, for pronunciations' sake - quinientos (500), setecientos (700), and novecientos. To form numbers in between the hundreds, you use the numbers 1-99 you learned in the last 2 lessons, but add the hundreds on to the front. Eleven is once, 111 is ciento once. Three-hundred and twenty is trescientos veinte, and so on.

Mil is Spanish for 1.000. No, this isn't "one point zero zero zero zero", this is one-thousand. English uses a comma to separate thousands, millions, etc., in a number. Spanish uses the period (".") instead. In English, we would expect to see this number: 12,399,100. In Spanish, the same number is written: 12.399.100. In much the same way, where English uses the period to denote numbers between whole numbers (as in "12.99"), Spanish uses a comma ("12,99"), but this will be discussed in another lesson.

Multiples of 1000 are treated as such - 2000 is dos mil, literally "two thousand". Three thousand is tres mil, and so on. This pattern is the same for thousands up to 999.000 (that's nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand), so that 50.000 is cincuenta mil, and 231.000 is doscientos treinta y uno mil. Combining these two rules for numbers, we can read numbers like 123.456 (ciento veintitres mil cuatrocientos cincuenta y seis) and 784.675 ( setecientos ochenta y cuatro mil seiscientos setenta y cinco). So now, practice saying things like:

Telling Time

Yo regreso a la universidad a las tres. Telling time in Spanish uses only 2 forms of the verb ser: es and son. Spanish for "it is one o'clock" is es la una. Times are always given in the feminine form because la hora ("hour", or "the time") is feminine. Es la is only used if you are talking about one o'clock, since "one" is singular. For all other hours, you use son las, as in son las seis ("It's 6 o'clock"). Minutes are expressed as numbers after the hour, using either y or menos to represent after or before the hour, respectively. At 15 minutes before or after the hour, cuarto ("a fourth") is used instead of quince ("fifteen"). Likewise, at 30 minutes after an hour, media ("half") is used instead of treinta ("thirty"). Media is never used with menos Here are some exapmles:

• Es la una y veinte. ("It's twenty after one", literally "it's one and twenty")
• Son las dos menos diez. ("It's ten before two", literally "it's two minus ten")
• Son las cuatro y cuarto. ("It's a quarter after four.")
• Son las cuatro menos cuarto. ("It's a quarter before four.")
• Son las diez y media. ("It's half past ten.")
• Es la una menos cinco. ("It's five (minutes) to one.")

To say that something is "at" a certain time, use a la or a las:

• ¿A qué hora es la clase? ("At what time is the class?")
• La clase es a las nueve. ("The class is at 9 o'clock.")
• La clase es a la una. ("The class is at one o'clock.")

To ask for the time in Spanish, use ¿Qué hora es? ("What time is it?"). To ask what time something happens at, use ¿A qué hora...? ("At what time...?") as in ¿A qué hora es la clase?, or ¿A qué hora regresas a la universidad? ("What time do you return to the university?").

To differentiate between AM and PM when telling time, Spanish uses de la mañana ("in the morning"), de la tarde ("in the afternoon"), and de la noche ("in the night") to describe what time of day being referred to. So 9 o'clock PM becomes son las nueve de la noche, while 9AM is son las nueve de la mañana, and 5PM is son las cinco de la tarde.

Questions and Question Words

Asking a yes or no question

There are many ways to ask questions in Spanish. The simplest form of a question is to use a regular sentence but either add question marks (when written) or change the inflection (when spoken). Look at these 2 sentences:

• Marisa estudia. ("Marisa studies.")
• ¿Marisa estudia? ("Does Marisa study?")

When writing a question in Spanish, question marks occur at both the beginning and the end of the question. The beginning question mark is always inverted, i.e. upside-down (¿), to specify the beginning of a question. Question marks do not need to surround the entire sentence if the entire sentence is not a question - see the example below. When speaking, you can't draw little question marks to let the other person know you're asking a question, so you must change the inflection of the sentence. A normal Spanish sentence ends on a low inflection, as in "maRIsa esTUdia", with capital letters denoting syllable emphasis. When asking a question, the sentence ends with a high inflection, as in "maRIsa estudIA", much the same as English questions.

It is also possible to change the word order when asking a question. Look at these sentences:

• ¿Marisa estudia español?
• ¿Estudia Marisa español?
• ¿Estudia español Marisa?

All three of these sentences say the same thing, "Is Marisa studying Spanish?" The subject of the sentence, namely Marisa, can be placed at the beginning of the sentence, after the verb, or at the end of the sentence, for questions only. The same rules of inflection apply as above. It is important to note that, the second form above (¿Estudia Marisa español?), with the subject after the verb, is the most "question-like", and is the preferred form for asking questions of this kind. In the section above, the proper way to ask "does Marisa study" would be ¿Estudia Marisa?

One other common way of asking a question is to add ¿no? or ¿verdad? ("right?") to the end of a sentence. So the question above could also be written: Marisa estudia español, ¿verdad? ("Marisa is studying Spanish, isn't she?" or "Marisa is studying Spanish, right?").

Question words

All of these questions have implied either a yes or no answer - "Is Marisa studying?", "Is she studying Spanish?" To ask questions that require more than a yes or no answer, you generally have to use a question word. Here is a list of some English question words and their Spanish equivalents:

1. What - qué
2. Who - quién
3. When - cuándo
4. Why - por qué,
5. Which - cuál
6. How much - cuánto(-a)
7. How many - cuántos(-as)
8. Where - dónde

Each question word, or interrogatve, works similarly to its English counterpart. Perhaps the easiest way to explain how to use them is through example sentences. Take a look at these:

1. ¿Quién es Roberto? ("Who is Roberto?")
2. ¿Cuándo regresa? ("When is s/he returning?")
3. ¿Dónde estudia? ("Where does s/he study?")
4. ¿Qué hora es? ("What time is it?")
5. ¿A qué hora es la clase? ("At what time is the class?")
6. ¿Cuál es la tarea? ("What is the homework (assignment)?")
7. ¿Quién está en la casa? ("Who is in the house?")
8. ¿Dónde está el lápiz? ("Where is the pencil?")
9. ¿Por qué regresa a la escuela? ("Why do you return to school?")
10. ¿En cuál universidad estudias? ("At which university do you study?")
11. ¿Cuántos estudiantes estan en la clase? ("How many students are in class?")

Notice the similarity between English and Spanish? Try making your own questions by translating the following English sentences (note that not all of them need a question word). Type in your answer in the text box after each sentence, then see the Translations at the botton of lesson 3 to compare what you typed to what the right answers are.

Test yourself

Here's your chance to see how much you know. All of these sentences you should be able to translate either from or to Spanish, if you've gone through all three lessons. Type in your answer in the text box after each sentence, then see the Translations at the botton of this lesson to compare what you typed to what the right answers are.

Translations

Note that the "answers" are not absolutes - there are generally several ways to say the same thing, both in English and Spanish.

1. What is in the book?

Answer: ¿Qué está en el libro?

2. Where does s/he work?

Answer: ¿Dónde trabaja?

3. Who is it?

Answer: ¿Quién está?

4. Is it 2 o'clock?

Answer: ¿Son las dos?

5. What do you(informal) need?

Answer: ¿Qué necesitas?

6. Why do you(informal) love him?

Answer: ¿Por qué amas él?

English to Spanish

1. Hello, Miss, are you in school?

Answer: Hola, senorita, ¿está en la escuela?

2. You're the teacher, aren't you?

Answer: ¿Eres la profesora, ¿verdad?

3. The class is long and difficult.

Answer: La clase es larga y difícil.

4. Is the television in the kitchen?

Answer: ¿Está la televisión en la cocina?

5. The green chair is big.

Answer: La silla verde es grande.

6. I listen to the teacher in (the) class.

Answer: Escucho al profesor en la clase.

7. Are the students unpleasant?

Answer: ¿Son los estudiantes antipáticos?

8. The chalkboard is dirty.

Answer: La pizarra está sucia.

9. I'm sorry, I don't speak English.

Answer: Lo siento, no hablo inglés.

10. They're Tim's papers.

Answer: Son los papeles de Tim.

Spanish to English

1. ¿Es la tarea dificíl?

Answer: Is the homework difficult?

2. ¿Cuándo está la clase?

Answer: When is the class?

3. Hablo inglés y español bueno.

Answer: I speak English and Spanish well.

4. ¿Está ella bonita?

Answer: Is she pretty?

5. La sale de clase es grande y limpia.

Answer: The classroom is big and clean.

6. ¿Dónde estudias geograf*iacute;a?

Answer: Where do you study geography?

7. ¿Quién llamas en la cocina?

Answer: Who do you call in the kitchen?

8. ¿Cuándo trabaja en la escuela?

Answer: When do you work at the school?

9. Es un libro de matemáticas.

Answer: It's a math book.

10. Necesito una pluma azul.

Answer: I need a blue pen.

That's the end of Lesson 3

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