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Spanish course notes (compiled by Mike Cowlishaw »)

Since 2016 I have been attending daytime Spanish courses run by the Coventry City Council Adult Education Service – CovLearn », taught by the outstanding Pilar Agudo-Tarancón.

This website collects my personal notes made while working through lesson annotations, homework, text books, etc.   Some issues are over-simplified (especially early notes), and also the style of presentation has changed over the years (I’m working on improving that, but in general a bold font is used for Spanish words).

Please note the books I have used.  In general, I only use examples that occur in multiple sources, and I usually modify those examples (typically to alternatives that might be of more interest to adult, rather than teenage, students of Spanish).

Comments and feedback (especially corrections!) are welcome; some of my earlier notes are are quite naïve.  My contact details are here ».

In progress

Web links


General rules

alphabet and special characters – names and saying (spelling), etc.

pronunciation, stress and accents

nouns, pronouns, and pronouns table

definite articles – the (el, la, los, las)

prepositions

adjectives

adverbs

numbers – ages, money

personal a

shortened forms

Thematic

hello – what’s your name, etc.

people – relatives, etc.

work – what do you do?

drinks, food – ordering, verbs, etc.

weather – words and verbs

what – questioning, that, than, etc.

where – places, directions, etc.

when – time, dates, etc.

this and that – (and yonder) este, éste, ese, esa, aquel; also here and there, etc.

para y por – for, etc.

play – playing words

Verb rules

-ar verbs – hablar, desear, etc.

-er verbs – comer, entender, leer, etc.

-ir verbs – vivir, escribir, etc.

reflexive verbs

verbs like gustar

verb forms – conjugations and summary of how they are used

compound verb forms – forms and summary

present tenses

past tenses

future tenses

present subjunctive

imperfect subjunctive

conditional

imperative

passive voice – using se or ser + past participle

progressive/continuousestar + gerundio

Note: perfect tenses are haber + past participle

Regular verbs

hablar – to speak (prototypical -ar)

comer – to eat (prototypical -er)

vivir – to live (prototypical -ir)

Irregular/noteworthy verbs

(In approximate frequency order;denotes a regular verb.)

Working list of ‘Multi-meaning verbs’ (also listed below)

ser and estar – to be (soy, somos; estoy, estamos)

haber – to have, to be, have to (he, has, ha ...)

tener – to hold, to have (tengo, tiene, tenemos)

hacer – to do, to make (hago, haces)

poder – to be able to (puedo, podemos)

decir – to say, to tell (digo, dices; dije)

ir – to go (voy, vamos)

ver – to see (veo, ves; vi, viste)

dar – to give (doy, damas)

saber – to know, to find out, to taste (sé, sabes, sabe .. supe)

querer – to want (quiero, queremos)

llegar – to arrive, to reach †

pasar – to pass, to pass by, to go †

deber – to owe, must †

poner – to put, to place (pongo...)

parecer – to seem, to think (parezco, pareces .. parezca, parezcas)

quedar – to stay, to fit †

creer – to believe, to suppose †

hablar – to speak †

llevar – to take, carry, wear, have, etc.

dejar – to leave, to allow †

seguir – to follow (sigo, seguimos) – silent u

encontrar – to meet, to find (encuentro, encuentras .. encuentre)

llamar – to call, name †

venir – to come (vengo, vienes)

gustar – to be pleasing to †, etc. (uses indirect object pronouns) – and verbs like gustar

oír – to hear (oigo, oyes; oí, oíste)

soler – to tend to, to be in the habit of (suelo, sueles ..suela)

Vocabulary

vocabulary – sundry words and phrases that I’ve found interesting and maybe worth reviewing

Reviewed


Spanish was last edited on 2024-05-01  
Topic: Spanish