Spanish Grammar for beginners: Present Tense (Part 4)

You have to face up to it! You NEED grammar, and that's all there is to it. You can squirm around and avoid eye contact with it for months ...but at the end of the day you will finally have to face up to it. Well, only if you you REALLY want to be able to communicate at a decent level in a foreign language and you are past the age when you can pick up the grammar rules subconsciously, unaware that you are doing so!

CONJUGATIONS

In any sentence, in English or any foreign language, the basic meaning or intention is expressed by referring to

1) WHAT is being done (name of verb)

2) WHO is doing it (person)

3) WHEN it is being done. (tense)

When we take any verb infinitive, (the WHAT) , and add to it the WHO and the WHEN element, this process is named conjugating the verb.

Hallelujah! All of this is encapsulated in ONE WORD = The VERB. Hey! How important is that?

Hence the VERB is really the SUPERGLUE that brings all of that vital information to all sentences. (ALL true sentences must have a verb,)

In the first two parts of this series, I explained the need to be able to understand how VERBS work and how they must be considered the SUPERGLUE. We have seen how the Me and the you part of the verb is formed....Now for the next step...

Let's be gossips and talk about someone else and what HE or SHE is getting up to!

SO LET'S CONJUGATE!

Habla inglés (He or she speaks English)

Come mucho (He or she eats alot)

Bebe agua (He or she drinks water)

Vive en Méjico (He or she lives in Mexico)

Es español (He is Spanish) Es española (She is Spanish)

Tiene un niño (He or She has got a child)

Va a Madrid (He or She goes to Madrid) or

(He or She is going to Madrid)

Quiere vino (He or She wants some wine)

Please Note: if your listener may have forgotton WHO you are talking about (He or she) then just add before the verb ÉL (He) or ELLA (She:  pron =eyya) to clarify: So:  Él quiere vino = He wants some wine. And : Ella quiere vino = She wants some wine.

LOOK FOR YOURSELF AND SEE WHICH PATTERNS YOU CAN SEE EMERGING! THAT'S THE GRAMMAR!

You may find it hard to to say 'NO' sometimes but you won't have a problem in Spanish! I have mentioned in a previous article how EASY it is to say 'NO' in Spanish!

Take the sentence 'She doesn't speak French'. So many times students ask me "How do you say 'doesn't' in Spanish?" There are no actually different words for 'doesn't' or 'don't' or 'won't' or 'wasn't' as the NEGATIVE of the all verbs, whenever theyare taking place, is simply 'NO' !

How cool is that. SO EASY!

LET'S CONJUGATE!!

No habla francés (He or She doesn't speak French)

No come mucho (He or she doesn't eat much)

No bebe cervea (He or she doesn't drink beer)

No vive en Madrid (He or she doesn't live in Madrid)

No es inglés (He is not English) / No es inglesa (She isn't English)

No tiene coche (He or she hasn't got a car)

No va a Paris (he or she doesn't go to Paris or He or she isn't going to Paris)

No quiere vino (He or she doesn't want any wine)

In my next article, I will be looking at how to form questions in Spanish, or to give it its grammatical term, the 'Interrogative' form.

But before that, it may be useful to look back over Spanish for Beginners: Part 1 and Spanish for Beginners: Part 2 of this series before embarking on the interrogative form.

Also see other related articles on language and language:

How to learn Spanish fast - Intensive courses

Raising bilingual children

Ten tips for learning Spanish

Common mistakes in Spanish

How to make Spanish omelette

Origin of Spanish tapas

Learn to play Spanish Classical Guitar