Guide To The Spanish Language
An introduction to Spanish without the grammar - A new and fresh perspective with some interesting items on
language and the similarities between Spanish and English
In Spanish they assign masculine and feminine status to certain words and this “gender” can be identified by the ending of the word and the word
immediately preceding the word. So for example in English we use the word “child” to indicate “a child” but this does not tell us if that child is a boy or a
girl. In Spanish they use a different word for a child if it is a boy or a girl.
In English when we refer to “a child” or “the child” we would not refer to “child”
without also using either “a” or “the”
In Spanish the word for child is “Niño” if it is a boy and “Niña” if it is a girl. Like
in English they will put it together with another word, the equivalent to our “a”
or “the”.
In Spanish the words they use for this are: El” and La” and they are masculine
and feminine. “El” is always masculine and “La” is always feminine.
In Spanish they do change words a lot. They are always taking the core of the word and changing the ending or stretching it out until it is almost
unrecognisable and this a real challenge for the student of Spanish. They will change words according to the context in which they are used, especially the
verbs, which gives us lots of variations of the same core meaning.
Regarding masculine and feminine they will also use “Los” for masculine plural and “Las” for feminine plural. To say “the boys” in Spanish they would
say “Los Niños” and “the girls” would be “Las Niñas”. They add the letter “s” at
the end, just like in English but in Spanish they also change the preceding word. This is great because it gives us more information.
When there is a mixture of masculine and feminine in a group, say there are both boys and girls playing and we want to say “the children” they will tend to
say “Los Niños” using the masculine form. In English, in many cases for the
plural, we just add an “s” to the end of the word so “table” becomes “tables”
but for some English words we also change more than just the “s”, as with the
word child, which becomes children. In Spanish it is similar to English in this respect. The difference is in the preceding word. In English we keep it the
same for masculine and feminine and for singular and plural. In Spanish they change the preceding word. The children in Spanish would be “Los niños”.
The preceding word is the big difference, in English we use “a” or “an” or
“the”. In Spanish they use “El” or “La” or “Los” or “Las”. In this example I have
used the words boys and girls and in these examples their gender is obvious but what about other objects like “the car” or “the boat” or “the table”? Are
these masculine or feminine?
In Spanish they refer to most items as either masculine or feminine and to know which is which has to be learnt. When learning new words I suggest
that you understand from the very first time you see a new word to what gender it belongs. The good news is that they mostly follow a pattern.
Knowing these patterns and rhyming sounds helps us to learn. The gender element of Spanish is a complication we are not familiar with in English and
does take a bit of time to get used to. It does crop up in various aspects of the
language so be prepared.
We need to know and remember to which gender a word belongs. A useful link is to think of “He gives me hell” and “the lady sings the blues” these are
link mnemonics and should be easier to remember.
When we want to remember which word is masculine is it “El” or “La”? “He gives me ‘ell” reminds us it is masculine.
“The Lady sings the blues” reminds us “La” is feminine.
We mentioned previously that language is musical and rhythmical and that we should think in these terms and pay attention to the unique rhythm and pitch
of Spanish sounds. This is useful when learning the gender. Most masculine words end in the letter “O” and most feminine words end in the letter ”A” this
is not always the case but enough to be noticeable. Now the word “El” sounds
Spanish when followed by “O” and the word “La” sounds Spanish when followed by “A”. We then can remember Hello or EL-O and the musical sound
La-A which will tell us the gender and which goes with which.
Some examples:
• the answer la repuesta
• the apartment el apartamento
• the apartment el piso
• the apple la manzana
• the appointment la cita
• the bar el bar
You can tell which is masculine and which is feminine right?
In English we also say “a bar” and “a tree” and “a child” we can also say “the
bar”, “the tree” and “the child” when we use which, depends upon the context
in which we are using the word. In Spanish it is similar and, as we know, they can use El, La, Los and Las. They will also use “un” masculine singular, “una”
feminine singular “unos” masculine plural and “unas” feminine plural.
So “a bar” is “un bar” and “an apple” is “una manzana” etc
