Lesson 1B: Organization

All 5 Vowels

Know the Spanish pronunciation of all five vowels in order to correctly pronounce single-vowel syllables using perfect cognates (words that are spelled the same and mean the same in both languages).

Listen to the popular children’s song, “Bate, Bate, Chocolate“, to hear 4 out of 5 vowels pronounced, and how longer words are broken up in order to pronounce each syllable clearly.

In the following practice, you will find the bold words broken apart into the Spanish syllables. Don’t forget the correct pronunciation of the vowels O and A as you practice:

U	I, Y*	E
…transfers easily from English to Spanish, but is often mispronounced. Use the following words as reminders of the correct Spanish pronunciation: ru-mor, bru-tal	…only occasionally pronounced the same. Use the following words as reminders of the correct Spanish pronunciation:ki-wi, ki-lo, ta-xi, ma-ní-a	…occurs pronounced the same least often. Use the following words as reminders of the correct Spanish pronunciation:pe-so, ca-fé, e-rror, te-rror
Now, practice words with two or all three of these vowels:e-nig-ma
Here, “i” is the same as English, but be careful to pronounce A and U correctly in: sin-gu-lar
Here, U is the same as English, but be careful to pronounce I and E correctly in: in-stru-men-tal, ex-clu-si-ve

*“ee”= Y = I: The Spanish Y is the same sound as the Spanish I, which in English is “ee” just like in the English words “taxi” and “funny”. However, no words using “y” this way are cognates.*

PRACTICAR

Syllables: Practice pronouncing single-vowel syllables separately and then together into words. You can use the English words (in parenthesis) as guides for each column in order to pronounce the following bold Spanish syllables containing A, E, I, O and U.

A(awe)	AD (odd)	DE (day)	PLE (play)	SI (see)	MI (me)	CON (cone)	GU (goo)
RA	NAL	E	BLE	I	VI	O	FU
CA	CAL	ME	PER	TI	DI	CO	DUC
BA	MAL	PE	VER	CI	NI	LO	NU
MA	TRAL	TE	CEN	SIN	IN	MO	RU
LA	LAR	SE	REC	SIM	XI	SO	PRO
TA	RAL	NE	TEC	DIS	KI	STRO	TOR
NA	BAL	TEL	SPEC	WI	VIL	RROR	CHO

Progress Check

Complete Progress check 1B and check your answers using the following file:

Lesson 2 Summary

Pronunciation Organizer Example

The lyrics from “De America, yo soy” (From America, I am), a song by Los Tigres del Norte from Mexico, are organized into the following pronunciation charts which summarize the steps in the process of correct Spanish pronunciation.

WORDS CONTAINING SINGLE-VOWEL SYLLABLES

A	E	I, Y	O	U
na-ci-do, Pa-ra, can-to, La-ti-no, A-me-ri-ca-no, al, Pam-pas, na-ce	en, Es, de, co-lo-res, el, Les, Del, nor-te, na-ce, di-cen, me, ser, de-cir, A-me-ri-ca-no, Eu-ro-pe-o, ve-o	na-ci-do, mil, y, mi, di-cen, La-ti-no, de-cir, A-me-ri-ca-no, Cha-pín, Si	na-ci-do, co-lo-res, los, can-to, co-lor, Por, nor-te, La-ti-no, No, A-me-ri-ca-no, Eu-ro-pe-o, ve-o	U-tu-ma-no, U-ru-guay

Courtesy

Pronounce correctly in order to request something, using the conversational courtesies of “perdón” and “por favor”.

A very helpful courtesy, and word in negotiating understanding in a conversation, is:

“perdón”

Very similar to the English “pardon”, it can be used for “excuse me”. You can combine this with:

“un(a)” + noun (+adjective)

Then, add:

“por favor”

to clarify that you are asking for one (“a/ an”) of something. Practice with the perfect cognate nouns and adjectives from the vocabulary charts.

You may also need to know the Spanish word that expresses the opposite of “no”:

SÍ (yes)

COMPARISONS

In addition to the similarities in the writing systems, there are also so many similarities in VOCABULARY and GRAMMAR between English and Spanish! This program leverages those similarities in order from most similar to least similar to facilitate WRITING Spanish with the ultimate goal being to transfer written Spanish to conversational Spanish. One concept in particular that helps in making connections are “cognates”, words similar in both English and Spanish. They either come from the same root language, like Latin or Greek, or have been loaned to both languages from another language. This book presents the most frequent Spanish words through comparisons with English using word families that share the same root languages. Over 150 out of 200 of the most common words in Spanish are related to English in this way. The purpose of this book is to show you how you can start using those words now, with their correct pronunciation, in order to gain context while listening or reading, and eventually to speak or write about almost anything!

Grammar part 2

Noun Phrases

Choose from various articles and adjectives to accompany both masculine and feminine nouns in order to build noun phrases, using noun and adjective cognates and the articles “un”, “una” and “mi”.

2 OF 1: In Spanish every noun is either masculine or feminine. Here “Un” and “Una”, like in the prefix “uni-” in “unilateral”, both mean the English words “a”, “an” or “one”. These are called articles. (Although often there are clues, it is difficult to know which gender each word is. You are not expected to get this right 100% of the time.)

English	Masculine (un)	Feminine (una)
an	auto	idea
a	favor, cable, menú	base, crisis, capital

The following words, since they describe people, can be both feminine and masculine and depend on the person the word is describing.

UN (masculine)	UNA (feminine)
Ac-tor, Con-duc-tor, Di-rec-tor, Doc-tor, In-spec-tor, Ma-e-stro	Ac-triz, Con-duc-to-ra, Di-rec-to-ra, Doc-to-ra, In-spec-to-ra, Ma-e-stra

The article goes before the noun to specify which noun. The adjective (usually) goes after the noun to modify the noun. All three can be replaced by a proper noun:

part of speech:	ARTICLE	NOUN	ADJECTIVE
to specify general noun…	un	área	tropical
not used with proper noun…	Costa Rica

We can replace the articles “un” or “una” with a neutral possessive adjective to specify to whom something belongs. Let’s start with “mi”, “my”. Just like in English, in Spanish “mi” is added before the noun to specify which noun.

part of speech:	ARTICLE	NOUN	ADJECTIVE
examples:	mi	teléfono	celular

In Spanish, just like in English, there are separate nouns, verbs and adjectives that follow a certain order. Start building complete sentences in Spanish with these basic structures!

In Spanish, a single verb:

can equal a simple, complete sentence;
does not require a pronoun before it;
can be used as either a statement or a question by simply changing the tone of your voice or writing question marks:

part of speech:	SPANISH VERB	ENGLISH VERB
examples:	¿Es? Es.	Is it? It is.

Add the verb phrase before the noun phrase to make a complete sentence.

part of speech:	VERB	ARTICLE	NOUN
examples:	Es	una	foto.

The verb phrase can be negative by adding “no” before the verb.

	verb phrase:		noun phrase:
part of speech:	Negative	VERB	ARTICLE	NOUN
examples:	No	es	un	mapa.

Where

We can add a connector which is usually a preposition to specify where or when. Let’s start with “en”, “in”. Just like in English, in Spanish the preposition “in” connects noun phrases and verb phrases and can be added before the article to specify where.

verb phrase		noun phrase
part of speech:	VERB	ARTICLE	NOUN	ADJECTIVE
examples:	Es	una	foto	familiar

Then you can add the connector with the second noun phrase to elaborate:

connector		noun phrase
part of speech:	CNCTR	ARTICLE	NOUN	ADJECTIVE
examples:	…en	mi	teléfono	celular.

Now use the connectors, noun phrases, and verb phrases in as many combinations as you can while referring to your cellphones. Change only the following options:

ARTICLES: un, una, miNOUNS: foto, mapa

Most Essential, Similar Vocabulary

This chart compares the English version of the words so you can leverage English to make deep connections. The interior (ALL CAPS) columns are similar and the exterior columns are often different. The bolded words are among the most frequent words in Spanish texts and conversations. Although they are all spelled similarly, will you recognize them if you hear them pronounced by a natural Spanish source? Read aloud through the Spanish words, pronouncing them correctly, in order to compare them to the English words and pronunciation.

common English	ENGLISH	=	SPANISH	common Spanish
NOT	NO			NO
IS		=	ES
IS NOT/ ISN’T		NO	NO ES
a, an	ONE	1	UNO	UN, UNA
MI			MI
IN, ON, at			EN

Explore 2A

Translate each high frequency word as you study. Then tally how often they appear in sources.

Section	Spanish	English	Frequency
Lesson 2: Organization
A	UNO
	UN/ UNA
	MI
	ES
	EN

First 7 Most Frequent Words by Function

VERB PHRASES			Connectors (prepositions go between noun phrases or verb phrases)
SPA	ENG	NOTES	SPA	ENG	NOTES
1. NO	not, NO	don’tdoesn’t	6. EN	IN, ON, at	en ←→ in, on
2. ES	IS, (formal you are)	SER = to be Permanent (serial)	7. UNO	ONE (1)	number

NOUN PHRASES
SPA	ENG	NOTES	SPA	ENG	NOTES
5. IDEA	IDEA	-a, feminine (f.)	3. UN, UNA	a, an, ONE	uni- (m. OR f.)
SOLO	SOLO	<– Related to, but not, frequent nouns	4. MI	MY	neutral
FAVOR	FAVOR		Although the below adjectives are not among the most common Spanish vocabulary, they are related to very common Spanish words that we will discuss in further lessons. As you can see, they are spelled the same, but can you pronounce them correctly and understand them when pronounced by natural Spanish speakers?
FACTOR	FACTOR		total causal vital temporal potencial interior	superior anterior posterior dual triple lateral	nominal final primer visible local manual

Subtle Differences

Here are some more, very common words in Spanish that are almost equal to English.

common English	ENGLISH	=	SPANISH	common Spanish
OR		/	O	o*
big	GRAND		GRANDE
the only	UNIQUE		ÚNIC@	lo único
EXIST(s)			EXISTE
please	FOR	FAVOR	POR	por favor

*o (or) is also “u” in Spanish when in front of words starting with o.

Essential Exceptions

There are some essential words that are not similar. For example, a word that could be very helpful is:

“sí” (“yes”)

(Pronounced “see”)

Just to clarify, not to cause confusion, there is a difference in meaning between “sí” and “si” (refer to lesson 1 about the written accent).

“si” (“if”)

(Pronounced “see”, written without an accent mark, context clarifies)

Explore 2B