How to Make a Sentence in Spanish
How to Make a Sentence in Spanish
As I mentioned a while back, Spanish is a very easy language to learn. If you recall that hub (if you don‘t go to http://hubpages.com/hub/Top-7-Reasons-to-Learn-Spanish ), I mentioned that English and Spanish grammar are very similar. One of their similarities is the importance of the verb to be. In the English language the most important verb is the verb to be. In Spanish we call that ser. Ser is also the most important verb in the Spanish language. We can go as far as saying that Ser is the essence of the Spanish language, without it the communication process would suffer a real setback. To illustrate this point let us consider a simple sentence in English. I am a student. Without the verb to be the sentence would be reduced to I a student. As you can see that would be make no sense.
The same thing applies to Spanish, you need the verb ser if you want the sentence to make sense. Now let’s take a look at the same sentence in Spanish: Yo soy un estudiante (I am a student). After removing the verb ser the sentence would be: Yo un estudiante. The previous sentence is incomplete, it is missing the verb ser. The best thing would be to learn the verb to be in Spanish. Once you accomplish that, you will be able to build basic sentences in Spanish. This is possible because you have already learned pronouns, articles and some nouns. Anyway, let’s get to it.
SER (To be, present tense)
Yo soy.
Tu eres.
El / Ella es.
Nosotros / Nosotras somos.
Ustedes son.
Ellos / Ellas son.
That is all there is to it. As you can see it is not a very complicated conjugation. The verb itself is short, and the conjugation for ustedes and ellos / ellas is the same. That means you have to memorize less information making the whole process very simple. At this point you are now capable of building simple sentences all by yourself. Let’s try another simple one.
Tu eres joven. (You are young).
Ellos son abogados. (They are lawyers).
El es doctor. (He is a doctor).
Ustedes son viejos. (You are old).
Another verb of great importance ( I guess all of them are) is the verb to have, meaning to possess something. You will learn how to conjugate that verb in its present tense, and you will gain more knowledge to build more sentences.
TENER (To have, to possess something)
Yo tengo.
Tu tienes.
El / Ella tiene.
Nosotros tenemos.
Ustedes tienen.
Ellos / Ellas tienen.
If you observe closely you will see that again, the conjugation for ustedes and ellos / ellas is the same. Again, this is good news because it means less material to memorize. Let’s build another simple sentence with this new knowledge:
Yo tengo hambre. (I am hungry.) Exact translation: I have hunger.
Yo tengo sed. (I am thirsty.) Exact translation: I have thirst.
From all the information you have gathered here, it is now possible to establish a basic structure to make a very simple sentence in Spanish.
Pronoun + Verb + Article + Noun (Adjective)
Now that you have this knowledge, go out and try it out for yourself!
Vocabulary
1. Estudiante (ezz-too-dee-ahn-tehh) (Student)
2. Joven (Hoh-vehn) (Young)
3. Abogado / Abogada (Ah-boh-gah-dah) (Lawyer male, Lawyer female)
4. Doctor /Doctora (Dock-torr) (Doctor male, Doctor female)
5. Viejo / Vieja (Vee-eh-hoh) (Old male, Old female)
6. Hambre (ahm-bre. Bre pronounced as brea in the word bread) (Hunger)
7. Sed (Same as English) (Thirst)
Useful Resources
Relevant Hubs
- Tiempo de Ftbol (Time for Soccer)
- Apologizing in Spanish
- Math in Spanish
- Shopping in Spanish
- Your Favorite Things in Spanish
- Asking for help in Spanish
- Would you like to order? - At the Restaurant in Spanish
- Dating in Spanish
- An Easy Guide to Days and Months in Spanish
- Introductions, Greetings and Nationalities in Spanish
- Useful Tricks When Learning Spanish
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