Beginning Spanish Words and Pronunciation

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In the last article I talked about how Spanish sentences are formed differently from sentences in English, and how learning Spanish isn't just as easy as learning what a bunch of words mean. But, of course if you don’t know any Spanish words, then you aren't going to be able to make any sentences, regardless if they are grammatically correct or not. You need to start learning some words and phrases. A good way to start is by thinking about some of the most common every day phrases in English.

You could start by learning some common greetings for example - hello (hola), goodbye (adiós), good morning (buenos días), good afternoon (buenas tardes). In these examples you might have noticed that the translation of the English word used for "good" is both "buenos" and "buenas". This is because one is masculine and the other is feminine!! If you are not sure what I am talking about then don’t worry. I will talk much more about gender in later articles.

The point here is that when learning new Spanish words or phrases you are probably going to notice differences in the way they are used that you don’t fully understand. If you are anything like me you will always be asking yourself “why?” My advice is not to get too bogged down in trying to understand these things too quickly. It will probably just frustrate you! I can say from experience - my own, and in teaching English to Spanish speakers - that worrying too much about 'why' certain things are said the way they are can become a big distraction from just learning to it, at least in the beginning. 

As well as learning useful words and phrases, you of course need to make sure that you can pronounce them correctly! The only way you can do this is by hearing some examples. It is important to make sure you pronounce Spanish words correctly right from the beginning. If you don’t then you will pick up bad habits that will become more difficult to shake off later on.  If you're learning on your own at home, it's important to pick a course of study that provides Spanish sound samples and conversations for you to listen to. 

Spanish pronunciation is something you will probably want to study separately during your studies. It is a good idea to do this early on. The good news is that Spanish pronunciation is far less complicated than English pronunciation. I will be discussing this in more detail in later articles.