The Royal Spanish Academy, founded in 1713, by the Duque d'Escalona, aims to preserve and improve the Spanish language. The Grammar (see bibliography) and Dictionary (Diccionario de la Lengua Española, 2 vols., 22nd edn., Madrid: Espasa Calpe) published by it are the standards of the language, but this only applies to Spain. It can no longer legislate for the Spanish of the Americas which has a lexical richness and diversity which can be initially confusing and certainly challenging. But fear not, for compensation is at hand, the grammar of the various countries concerned is comfortingly uniform and we must be grateful for this – and this includes the author. We must also be grateful to the Real Academia for helping to keep the language relatively stable.

Level 1

1. 1.1 Alphabet, spelling and pronunciation (Alfabeto, ortografía y pronunciación)

2. 1.2 Stress (El acento tónico)

Alphabet, spelling and pronunciation

As with the grammar, Spanish pronunciation is happily uniform, with the consequence that once you have conquered the sounds, you are not enmeshed in the mire associated with, for example, the innumerable and irreducible irregularities of English pronunciation. Furthermore, the spelling system of the Spanish language is really quite easy compared to English. Aim for a perfect accent and real fluency. This will not only help you immeasurably in your communication with Spanish speakers but also allow you to appreciate more the written word, especially literature which is its highest expression.

Level 1

1. 1.1 Personalawhen used for persons (La preposiciónacon un complemento directo)

2. 1.2 Personalawhen used with collective nouns (La a con nombres colectivos)

3. 1.3 Personalawhen used with animals (La a con animales)

4. 1.4 Personalawhen used with proper names (La a con nombres propios)

5. 1.5 When personalais not used (Cuando no se usa la a)

Personal a when used for persons

In English, the distinction between a noun as subject and a noun as object is shown by its location in the sentence. In John reads the book, John is the subject and book is the object. John comes before book. In Latin, this was shown by what we call case endings; that is to say the endings of words changed according to their relationship with each other, and word order was not so important. In Spanish, and much more than in French or English, but similar to Italian, location has about as little effect on the meaning as in Latin. Many Spanish speakers can find themselves therefore in considerable difficulty in distinguishing between subject and object, and do not always succeed as clearly as we do in English or French.

The only device in Spanish for distinguishing a noun as direct object when referring to persons is by placing the preposition a before it.

Level 1

1. 1.1 Irregular verbs (Los verbos irregulares)

2. 1.2 Radical changing verbs (Los verbos con diptongación)

Irregular verbs

Irregular verbs have the habit of worrying people, for they seem to herald a long list of tiresome tenses to be learnt, when it would have been so much kinder if these verbs or their users had made an effort towards conformity to the types we already know. Certainly, Spanish irregular verbs are more complicated than English verbs, and there do seem to be a lot of them. However, many of them are quite rare, so that perhaps fifty irregular verbs need to be learnt, and others are compounds from shorter irregular verbs conjugated like them. Suponer comes from poner, devolver comes from volver, detener comes from tener, and so on. So, numerous Spanish irregular verbs are not unique.

Space does not allow a full tabulation of all Spanish irregular verbs. Good-quality dictionaries such as the Collins, the Oxford, or the Simon and Schuster contain all the necessary information. The Spanish Verbs by María Rosario Hollis (Teach Yourself Books) and 501 Spanish Verbs by Kendris (Barron's Educational Series) are also very helpful.

This unit is an introduction to Spanish irregular verbs, while it is suggested you refer to other units for irregularities in verbs when they are used in the future tense (unit 6), conditional (unit 9), imperfect (unit 7), perfect (unit 5), preterit (unit 8), and the subjunctive (unit 16) and imperative moods (unit 11).

1. 1.1 The basic prepositions (Las preposiciones básicas)

2. 1.2 Uses of a (Usos dea)

3. 1.3 Uses of ante (Usos deante)

4. 1.4 Uses of bajo (Usos debajo)

5. 1.5 Uses of con (Usos decon)

6. 1.6 Uses of contra (Usos decontra)

7. 1.7 Uses of de (Usos dede)

8. 1.8 Uses of desde (Usos dedesde)

9. 1.9 Uses of durante (Usos dedurante)

10. 1.10 Uses of en (Usos deen)

11. 1.11 Uses of entre (Usos deentre)

12. 1.12 Uses of excepto (Usos deexcepto)

13. 1.13 Uses of hacia (Usos dehacia)

14. 1.14 Uses of hasta (Usos dehasta)

15. 1.15 Uses of mediante (Usos demediante)

16. 1.16 Uses of salvo (Usos desalvo)

17. 1.17 Uses of según (Usos desegún)

18. 1.18 Uses of sin (Usos desin)

19. 1.19 Uses of sobre (Usos desobre)

20. 1.20 Uses of tras (Usos detras)

The basic prepositions

The simplest use of prepositions is to express the relations of things to each other with respect to time and place. Such prepositions in English are in, out, before, under, over. They extend, however, to many other relations, and especially to the relations between adjectives or verbs and the nouns or pronouns to which they apply.

There are two sorts of prepositions in Spanish: simple and compound. The simple ones will be treated in level 1, while the compound ones will be dealt with in level 2, together with more complex expressions.