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The free Spanish course I have created at www.spanish-bookworld.com brings you not only beginners’ lessons, downloadable mp3s, videos and articles, but also kids’ lessons.

All the kids’ lessons in my free Spanish course are interactive: they include multimedia flashcards you can see and hear, speaking exercises and listening drills.

Like all my other Spanish lessons, mp3s and videos, they have been recorded by native speakers.

The kids’ lessons in my courses include topics such as: the family, numbers, animals, colors, names, greetings, professions, the time, asking questions; useful words like ‘the’, ‘a’, ’some’, ‘and’, ‘I’, etc.; the alphabet, the days of the week, food, clothes, and more.

If you want to see the full list of topics, here is the lesson plan.

To show you what the interactive multimedia lessons for kids in my free Spanish course look like, here are five snapshots:

 

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To help you learn Spanish better and faster, I’ll be posting on this blog the definition of the main grammatical terms together with practical examples. You can also find them in Lesson 1 of my free Spanish course. Today’s post is about:

ADJECTIVES

Adjectives are words used to describe or modify nouns and pronouns.

Here are some examples in English:

The black cat is on the new sofa.
My cat is black.
Which is your cat? The black one.

 

1. Adjectives – describing words

In these three examples the word black is a describing word which modifies the noun cat.

There is one other describing word in the examples above. Can you tell which one it is? Post your answer (or guess) in the comment box!

 

2. Adjectives – possession

Adjectives, however, are not just describing words, but they can also indicate possession:

My cat is black
Which is your cat?

 

In these two cases the words my and your indicate who the owner of the cat is.

 

3. Comparing English and Spanish

In Spanish grammar, adjectives work in a similar way. Observe these examples:

The black cat is on the new sofa.
El gato negro está en el sofá nuevo.

 

Notice that describing words in Spanish generally go after the noun they describe (gato negro) and not before it (black cat).

Here are the possessive adjective examples we saw above in Spanish:

My cat is black.
Mi gato es negro.

Which is your cat?
¿Cuál es tu gato?

 

Notice that the possessive adjective goes before the noun in both English and Spanish (my cat – mi gato).

4. More grammatical terms

This is what Lesson 1 of my free Spanish course looks like:

 

 

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At www.spanish-bookworld.com I’ve set up a free Spanish language course with online lessons, downloadable mp3s and videos, kids’ lessons and language learning articles.

The online lessons have five sections: dialog, flashcards, grammar, pronunciation and numbers.

The online lessons, mp3s and videos all include learning material, speaking exercises and listening drills. They’ve all been recorded by native Spanish speakers.

This free Spanish course is available to you right now. Hope you like it! Below are some snapshots from the course.

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Free Spanish course – part of the lesson plan

 

Free Spanish course – dialog

 

Free Spanish course – mp3s & videos

 

Free Spanish course – kids’ lessons

 

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The Spanish greeting ‘buenas tardes‘ translates both as ‘good afternoon‘ and ‘good evening‘; and the greeting ‘buenas noches‘ means both ‘good evening‘ and ‘good night‘.

So, when do you use ‘buenas tardes’ and ‘buenas noches’?

Unlike in English, these two Spanish greetings have more to do with meals and the sunset than with the actual time of day.

Therefore, ‘buenas tardes’ is usually said after lunch, which is often from 2.00 pm. ‘Buenas noches’, especially in the summer, is usually said after 9.00 pm. In winter, many people say ‘buenas tardes’ at least until 8.00 pm, even if it’s dark; and many only use ‘buenas noches’ after dinner, which tends to be from 9.00 pm.

When using ‘buenas noches’, remember that it’s not only a farewell, but also a greeting. You can use it both when you meet someone and when you leave.

As you can see, there is no golden rule as to when to use these Spanish greetings. The important point is that they’re vague and flexible. Best of all, there’s an easy way out if you’re unsure as to which one to use: you can simply say ‘buenas’.

If you want to practice saying these and other Spanish greetings, you can hear them said by native speakers in the Lessons 2, 3 and 4 of my Spanish course. Here are two samples:

Lesson 2 dialog and flashcards

 

 

 

Here are the most common Spanish greetings, together with their English translation:

Hola – Hello
Buenos días – Good morning
Buenas tardes – Good afternoon / good evening
Buenas noches – Good evening / good night
¿Qué tal estás? – How are you?
Bien, gracias – Fine, thanks
Hasta pronto – See you soon
Hasta la vista – See you
Adiós – Goodbye

 

You can hear these greetings said by native Spanish speakers in the first four lessons of my Spanish for beginners course. Here are the Lesson 1 flashcards:

 

 

Learning tip

To learn new Spanish words well, make sure you hear them said by native speakers, rather than someone without a native accent. Learning from native speakers is essential if you want to avoid bad pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar habits.

 

In this free Spanish pronunciation lesson we’re going to learn how to pronounce the vowel ‘a’ correctly.

You can hear all the Spanish words in this post, including the exercise at the end, in the free Lesson 1 of my Spanish for beginners course.

1. Tips on how to get the Spanish ‘a’ always right

• The Spanish a sounds like the ‘a’ in the English word: ‘father’.
• The Spanish a has a pure, unchangeable sound. You should pronounce it always the same way.
• The Spanish a sounds the same whether it comes at the beginning of a word, in the middle, at the end or on its own.
• Often it will be tempting to say the a like in the English words ‘table’ or ‘hand‘. Unfortunately, doing so will make it difficult for Spanish speakers to understand you.

Pronouncing the vowel ‘a’ correctly will dramatically help you communicate successfully in Spanish.

2. Difficult Spanish words with the letter ‘a’

To master the Spanish a, practice saying words that look similar in English and Spanish. Those words often sound quite different in Spanish, and it can take a while to get them consistently right.

Here are ten words that will help you quickly master the a. To hear them said by native speakers, go to the multimedia Lesson 1 of my Spanish for beginners course. It’s free.

vacaciones – vacation
aire – air
cafetería – cafeteria
individual – individual
pasaporte – passport
radio – radio
recepcionista – receptionist
mayonesa – mayonnaise
mineral – mineral
patata – potato

3. Saying a difficult Spanish sentence

Here’s a sentence with several words with the letter a. Read out this sentence paying particular attention to the way you say each a. In my free Lesson 1 you can hear this sentence said slowly and at normal speed.

Mañana por la mañana vamos a nadar a la playa
Tomorrow morning we’re going to swim at the beach

Can you say this sentence fluently? Try every so often over the next few days and you will soon master it!

4. Spanish pronunciation exercise

We are now going to practice saying ten very useful words: ten place names. They all contain at least one a. Can you say them out loud correctly?

América
España
Panamá
California
Colorado
Florida
Sacramento
Álamo
Salinas
Palo Alto

Remember that you can hear all the Spanish words in this post in the free Lesson 1 of my Spanish for beginners course. There you can also download the free Lesson 1 podcast and videocast, and go through them on your iPod or any other mp3 player.

Do you have any questions? Are there any Spanish words you are not sure how to pronounce? If so, please let me know through the comment box below.

In this free Spanish lesson we’re going to learn what’s your name in Spanish and how to introduce yourself.

If you want to hear all the examples in this lesson, you can find them in the free Lesson 2 of my Spanish for beginners course.

1. How to ask people their names, and how to answer the question

This is how you ask someone his or her name in Spanish:

¿Cómo te llamas? – What’s your name?

 

and this is how you answer when people ask you your name:

Me llamo [María] – My name is [Maria]

2. Examples

Here are six examples where you can practice asking people their names and introducing yourself:

Hola, me llamo Margarita
Hello, my name is Margaret

Buenas tardes, me llamo Juan
Good afternoon, my name is John

Buenos días, me llamo José García
Good morning, my name is José García

Hola, me llamo Ana López
Hello, my name is Ana López

Hola, ¿cómo te llamas?
Hello, what’s your name?

Buenas tardes, ¿cómo te llamas?
Good afternoon, what’s your name?

3. The literal meaning of ‘¿cómo te llamas?’ and ‘me llamo …’

Here’s what ¿cómo te llamas? and me llamo … mean word for word:

* The word cómo usually means how.
* Te llamas literally means you call yourself.
* When you ask ¿cómo te llamas? what you’re saying is how do you call yourself?
* Likewise, me llamo literally means I call myself.
* When you say me llamo …, what you are saying, literally, is I call myself …

4. How to pronounce ‘¿cómo te llamas?’ and ‘me llamo …’

In the free Lesson 2 of my Spanish for beginners course you can hear all the sentences in this article said by native Spanish speakers, including myself.

When you listen to them, notice how the intonation rises at the end of the question, but not at the end of the answer.

5. Exercise

In the free Lesson 2 of my Spanish for beginners course you can do the interactive multimedia drill to practice what you’ve learned here.

Spanish Bookworld is giving away a free Spanish for beginners cd-rom to all of you who subscribe to our Spanish course by September 30, 2009.

This is what our Spanish for beginners cd-rom looks like:

 

 

 

 

 

This cd-rom contains 99 student-friendly lessons and 225 speaking, listening, reading and writing drills. All the lessons and drills are interactive, and have been recorded by native Spanish speakers.

In addition to that, the cd-rom also includes an interactive multimedia Spanish pronunciation guide and a talking dictionary with over 800 headwords.

To help you keep track of your progress, you can tick each lesson after you complete it, and your score is saved when you finish a drill. Also, you can make a note of your questions and difficulties on the integrated notepad, and post your queries to me on the members-only forum.

At Spanish Bookworld you can find all the details of our subscription course, including free samples from the online lessons, podcasts, videocasts, kids’ lessons, interactive articles, ebook and exclusive forum.

At Spanish Bookworld you can also see free samples from our cd-rom, together with the cd-rom features, table of contents, system requirements, testimonial and more.

Knowing some common Spanish sentences well can greatly boost your motivation to continue learning, and it will give you precious confidence.

The dialogs in my Spanish for beginners course include a wide variety of everyday questions and answers that you’ll often hear when communicating with native Spanish speakers.

Here are five questions from the dialogs in my course that you’ll often hear in conversation, together with their English translation. Click on them to hear them said by native speakers:

¿qué hora es? – what time is it?

¿qué vais a tomar? – what are you going to have?

¿qué más le pongo? – what else can I give you?

¿alguna otra cosa? – anything else?

¿me puede decir cuánto es todo? – can you tell me how much everything is?

In this post I’m going to guide you through how to master these five questions. Let’s listen to the first one once more:

¿qué hora es? – what time is it?

Notice how the intonation rises at the end of the question.

All Spanish questions must rise at the end to be understood properly. Because of the way Spanish verbs and word order work, if your question doesn’t rise at the end, you’ll often sound like you’re making a statement rather than asking something.

As for the pronunciation, in the question ‘¿qué hora es?’ remember that the ‘u’ in ‘qué’ and the ‘h’ in ‘hora’ are silent. If you need to go through the pronunciation rules of any of the letters of the alphabet, you can find them all in the pronunciation lessons in my Spanish for beginners course.

Let’s listen to the first question once more. Once you’re familiar with it, repeat it out loud, along with the Spanish speaker, trying to keep up with the speed. To sound like a native, make sure you imitate her intonation too:

¿qué hora es? – what time is it?

Let’s now move on to the second question. Click on it several times to hear it and, like before, then repeat it after the speaker:

¿qué vais a tomar? – what are you going to have?

Remember that the Spanish ‘v’ sounds like a ‘b’, and notice how the words ‘vais a’ are joined together. You should join them too!

In the third question ‘¿qué más le pongo?’ you need to watch out for the vowels. Before we practice saying the whole question, let’s review these three vowels:

a

e

o

In particular, make sure the ‘e’ in ‘le’ doesn’t sound like the ‘e’ in the English word ‘me’, and that the final ‘o’ in ‘pongo’ doesn’t sound like the ‘o’ in the English word ‘go’. You can practice these two vowels in Lessons 2 and 4 of my Spanish for beginners course.

Like with the previous two sentences, listen to it several times and then repeat it along with the speaker:

¿qué más le pongo? – what else can I give you?

In the forth sentence ‘¿alguna otra cosa?’ make sure again that you’re saying the vowels correctly:

a

o

u

You can practice these three vowels in Lessons 1, 4 and 5 of my Spanish for beginners course.

Also, don’t forget that the question must rise at the end. Practice this sentence like the ones before:

¿alguna otra cosa? – anything else?

The fifth and final question is ‘¿me puede decir cuánto es todo?’ (can you tell me how much everything is?). Here, make sure you’re saying the words ‘me’, ‘puede’ and ‘cuánto’ correctly:

me – me, to me

puede – you can

cuánto – how much

Remember not to drop the final ‘e’ in ‘puede’, and to say both the ‘u’ and the ‘a’ clearly in ‘cuánto’.

This last sentence is longer than the previous ones, so you might find it more difficult to master it. Listen to it as many times as you need to get familiar with its sound, and then repeat it out loud along with the speaker:

¿me puede decir cuánto es todo? – can you tell me how much everything is?

Speaking drill

To review the Spanish questions in this post, we’re going to do a speaking drill. Here are the five questions in English. Can you say them in Spanish? Press play to hear the right answer:

what are you going to have?

can you tell me how much everything is?

what time is it?

what else can I give you?

anything else?

Repeat this drill until you can get all five questions right. You may want to come back to it several times over the next few days to really master them.

If you liked this post, you can find many more interactive multimedia articles like this one on my other site, Spanish Bookworld.

This is the Lesson 1 dialog from my Spanish for Beginners course.

It’s an interactive multimedia movie where you can hear two Spanish native speakers greeting each other.

If you need help, click on Instructions on the movie. If you need more help, contact me!

You can find dozens more Spanish lessons at Spanish Bookworld

 

 

Can’t see a lesson? Try this: Place your cursor over the words Share / Save below this line for a couple of seconds, without clicking on them. Move the cursor to a side and the lesson will appear. No luck? Refresh and try again!