Knowing the six forms of the irregular Spanish verb estar in the present tense will allow you to build and understand essential sentences, questions and answers. You can listen to the six forms, together with all the Spanish examples in this post, and play the interactive drill, in the Lesson 4 – Grammar of my free Spanish course.

1. Estar in the present tense

Here’s what the Spanish verb estar looks like in the present tense and how you translate it:

yo tú él / ella / usted nosotros / nosotras vosotros / vosotras ellos / ellas / ustedes

estoy estás está estamos estáis están

I am you (singular) are he/she/it is, you (singular, formal) are we are you (plural) are they are, you (plural, formal) are

2. Examples with estar

Here are some examples with the six forms we’ve just learned, in both Spanish and English:

¿Dónde estás?
Where are you?

Estoy en el hotel
I’m at the hotel

Pedro está con su amigo
Peter is with his friend

Estamos en casa
We’re at home

¿Dónde estáis?
Where are you?

Están muy ocupados
They are very busy

3. When to use the verb estar

Estar is one of two Spanish verbs that translates as ‘to be’. The other verbs is ser, which we’ll learn in a future post.

The verb estar is used to indicate:

• Where people or things are
• Moods and feelings
• Physical conditions
• Physical appearance at some point in time
• Temporary rather than permanent conditions

 

To illustrate these five points, here are five examples with their English translation:

El hotel está en Colorado
The hotel is in Colorado

Estamos enfadados
We’re angry

Estoy enfermo
I’m ill

Pablo está muy elegante
Paul is (looking) very elegant

Los zapatos están rotos
The shoes are broken

4. Speaking drill

Can you say these ten sentences in Spanish? You can see the solutions in Spanish and hear them said by native speakers in the Lesson 4 – Grammar of my free Spanish course.

1. How are they?
2. They’re angry
3. Which hotel are you (vosotros) in?
4. We’re in the Arizona hotel
5. Where are you (tú)?
6. Is he at the hotel?
7. Is she on the beach?
8. You’re (tú) looking very elegant
9. I’m on vacation
10. Are they on vacation?

 

To get this and other grammar lessons:

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In my experience as a Spanish language teacher, here are three mistakes that can make you waste precious time, ruin your confidence and eventually give up. As you will see, they are easy to avoid:

1. Rushing through your first Spanish lessons

 

Having a sound knowledge of the basics will determine how fast, and how well, you can learn Spanish.

If you’re a complete beginner, concentrate on each and every lesson of your course, from the beginning, for as long as you need. Do not rush yourself. If a lesson takes you three hours, so be it, but never allow yourself to skip any material.

Basically, the more time you put into the first lessons, the faster you’ll be able to learn later on.

If you’re past the beginners’ level but have some gaps in your knowledge, stop learning new material and go back to the beginning. This may sound drastic, boring, defeating or simply mad, but it will work wonders and no doubt boost your confidence in no time.

To succeed, follow this routine: review all the words you have learned so far. Make sure you understand all the grammar you have covered. Do not allow yourself to make more than one mistake per exercise or drill. Listen to the dialogs until you can say them out loud along with the recordings.

Remember: small gaps at the beginning become enormous holes by lesson twelve. By lesson twenty, giving up will feel like the only way out.

 

2. Not focusing on the Spanish pronunciation

 

Working on your pronunciation might not be the obvious thing to do as a beginner, but it has many great advantages:

• The better your pronunciation is, the better you’ll be able to understand native speakers.
• Having a good accent is hugely rewarding and motivating.
• Having a good accent from the start also allows you to avoid bad pronunciation habits that aren’t always easy to get rid of.

The best way to improve your pronunciation is to concentrate on one letter of the alphabet at a time, and then on words you’re having difficulty with. To get a good Spanish accent, make sure you learn only from native Spanish speakers.

Acquiring a very good accent requires patience and perseverance, no doubt, but once you start working on it you’ll notice some improvement almost from the start. Guaranteed!

 

3. Learning Spanish nouns without ‘el’ or ‘la’

 

Whenever you learn a Spanish noun with its article, you’re avoiding endless future mistakes. In other words, you’re saving yourself a lot of time and unnecessary, repetitive work.

As you may know, the Spanish gender rules can help you ‘guess’ the gender of many words, especially those ending in ‘a’ and ‘o’, but there are many nouns that will let you down if you try to guess their gender. That’s why it’s safer, and faster, to learn them all with their article when you first come across them.

The good news is that any good Spanish course gives you every new noun with its article.

Warning: Unfortunately, there are many Spanish courses that still teach nouns without their article. To avoid wasting your time, make sure the Spanish course you get gives you the new vocabulary with ‘el’ and ‘la’. The simplest way to do it is by checking the free lessons before buying the full product. If there are no sample lessons, get a different course!

Useful Spanish learning material

Free Spanish course
Spanish pronunciation lessons

 

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.

Sign up for free!

Free Spanish course – part of the lesson plan

 

Free Spanish course – dialog

 

Free Spanish course – mp3s & videos

 

Free Spanish course – kids’ lessons

 

Sign up for free!

 

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

 

 

 

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.

One of the biggest frustrations we all face when learning a foreign language is having to learn the same words over and over.

As a Spanish language teacher, here are 4 tips I’ve found will help you stop forgetting the words you’ve come across:

1. Learn new words with audio material rather than from print only

The difference between learning new Spanish words by reading them in your lesson’s glossary and hearing them said by a native speaker is abysmal.

Hearing new words said by a native speaker, preferably with their English translation afterwards, will not only make you familiar with those words substantially faster, but it will also allow you to remember them more easily.

There are dozens of good Spanish courses with audio material on cd, dvd, cd-rom, podcast and videocast that can help you do just that; and most of them are very affordable.

Check out this example of a vocabulary lesson online, on mp3 and videocast.

2. Learn new words in context

Whenever you learn a new Spanish word, make sure you also hear it in context. Remembering lists of words without context is practically impossible for most of us, because the human brain works best by making associations. In my view, dialogs are the most effective tool for learning new vocabulary.

As an example, here’s the dialog where you can hear all the new words listed in the vocabulary lesson above. You can see and hear it in three formats: online, as an mp3 and a videocast.

3. Find similarities between words

If you can find a similarity between a Spanish word you’ve just come across and another Spanish word you already know or, better still, an English word, you won’t forget it easily.

For instance, when you first see the word encantado (pleased to meet you) you can associate it to enchanted (which it’s related to), or el vino (the wine) to the vineyard.

Other associations are less strong, but they can still help you a long way. Here are some Spanish and English words with the same origin:

la noche (the night) – nocturnal
tener (to have) – tenure
mandar (to send, to order) – mandate
el ordenador (the computer) – order
lo siento (I’m sorry) – sentiment
la vaca (the cow, the beef) – vaccine

 

I find this way of learning new words so effective that I’ve included word associations throughout my Spanish course, and continue adding new ones to the lessons whenever I find them.

4. Review your vocabulary with audio material regularly

The secret of success, when it comes to mastering Spanish, is to review your material regularly. Listen to your dialogs and vocabulary lessons as frequently as you can. Repeat them out loud, along with the recordings, with and without the printed text in front of you. In other words, make reviewing part of your study routine.

Reviewing always pays off. The more often you review what you’ve learn, the more solid your knowledge will be, and the faster you’ll be able to learn and remember new words.

Sadly, most of the Spanish gender rules you find throughout the Internet are unreliable and plagued with exceptions.

A quick search for terms such as “Spanish gender rules” gives you a frightening number of sites stating, for instance, that “nouns ending in ‘e’ and nouns ending in a consonant are usually masculine”. The problem with these so-called rules is that there are simply thousands of Spanish feminine nouns ending in ‘e’ or a consonant.

My dilemma as a Spanish teacher is that I want to help my students learn the language as fast as possible at the same time as I steer them away from making basic mistakes. For that reason I prefer to ignore gender rules with a substantial number of exceptions, which leaves only three to follow.

So, in my opinion, these are the only gender rules consistent enough to be considered reliable:

 

1. Most Spanish nouns ending in ‘o’ as masculine.
2. Most Spanish nouns ending in ‘a’ are feminine.
3. Spanish nouns ending in ‘dad’, ‘tad’, ‘tud’, ‘ción’ ’sión’, ‘gión’, ‘triz’ and ‘umbre’ are feminine.

 

Rule 3 is a golden rule, but in rules 1 and 2 (the rules that apply to the great majority of Spanish nouns) the word to watch out for is ‘most’. That’s why it’s good practice to learn all new nouns with their article, rather than on their own.

In other posts we’ll see a longer list of exceptions to these two rules, but here are some. As you can see, many are everyday words:

la mano – the hand
la foto – the photograph
la moto – the motorcycle
la modelo – the model
la radio – the radio

el día – the day
el gorila – the gorilla
el cólera – the cholera
el cura – the priest
el tranvía – the streetcar, the tramway

There’s an interesting group of nouns that, one could argue, rather than being an exception to Rule 2 above, have a rule of their own. Those are nouns of Greek origin ending in ‘ma’, ‘ta’ and ‘pa’ which are all masculine. Those nouns often look similar in English and Spanish:

el programa – the program, the programme
el problema – the problem
el mapa – the map
el cometa – the comet
el planeta – the planet

Briefly: the gender of nouns ending in ‘o’ and ‘a’ can be guessed in the great majority of cases, but the exceptions are often commonly used nouns. Other gender rules, except for Rule 3 above and that applying to nouns of Greek origin, are not reliable enough.

 

About me and my Spanish course

I have taught Spanish for over fifteen years and have two Spanish learning publications to my name. My latest work is the Spanish for beginners course at Spanish Bookworld.

This course come with dozens of online lessons for both adults and children, downloadable mp3s and videocasts, interactive ebooks, language learning articles and an exclusive forum where you can ask me your language questions.

Do you want to learn Spanish fast? Do you want to have fun while you study the language? Do you want to be able to study whenever you have some free time, without pressure and with a lot of choice?

If your answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’, here are 5 tips that will help you improve your Spanish faster than you ever imagined:

 

1. Listen to Spanish language learning podcasts. Podcasts are downloadable mp3s that you can listen to on your iPod or any other mp3 player. They’re usually short lessons that focus on one aspect of the language and encourage you to practice speaking. If you’ve never listened to a Spanish learning podcast, here’s a sample from my series called Spanish Podcasts for Beginners

 

2. Listen to audiobooks in Spanish. There are literally hundreds of Spanish audiobooks on cd, from children’s stories to El Quijote, The Bible, Dan Brown’s bestsellers, poetry anthologies and self-help books. Audiobooks are great on their own for developing your listening skills, but you can also practice reading by following the audiobook along with the printed version. Here are some popular titles.

 

3. Watch Spanish movies and TV programs dubbed into Spanish. Dexter, The Simpsons, 24, Stargate Atlantis, Bones, Star Trek, House … just about every TV program on dvd has been dubbed into Spanish. What’s more, many come with optional English and Spanish subtitles, so you can choose any language and subtitle combination you want.

 

4. Listen to Spanish songs and follow the lyrics. If you like Latin music, this is a great way of learning and practicing the language without effort. Lyrics are easy to find on the Internet, and many cds come with them too.

 

5. Watch videocasts on your iPod. Videocasts are basically a podcast that you can see and hear. Spanish language learning videocasts allow you to follow the lessons with the text in front of you, practice speaking and reading, improve your vocabulary and, overall, learn the language in a natural and intuitive way. To see a videocast in action, go to my Spanish for beginners course. There you can download the Lesson 1 videocasts for free or watch a sample online.

 

Do you have a favorite way of learning Spanish? If you want to share it, please feel free to write a comment.