Spanish Notes for Week #1

Discover Spanish, being a podcast, has limitations when it comes to grammar and learning how to write the Spanish language.  Therefore, I will be posting these notes for you on a weekly basis, Jake, so you learn grammar as well!

Here are some things you need to know from this week's lesson material:

The words Señor, Señora, and Señorita all have an accent mark over the letter n, which is called a tilde.  The letter n with a tilde over it is its own letter, in addition to a 'regular n' in the Spanish alphabet.

The verb llamar, which literally in Spanish means to call, is the verb we use to ask what someone's name is, or what they 'call' themselves.  Depending on who is 'doing' the action in the sentence, the ending of the verb will change.  In the present tense (or now), the verb endings are:

I - o                                we - amos

you (singular) - as          you (plural) - ais

he, she, it - a                   they - an

So, in the case of llamar, to conjugate the verb, you remove the last two letters, ar, and replace them with the ending for the person who is performing the action (in this case, doing the 'calling'):

llamo                  llamamos

llamas                 llamais

llama                   llaman

The 'me' in front of llamo means that I call myself (my name is) _________.  So, to say:

I call myself (my name is) - me llamo                   

You call yourself (your name is) - te llamas          

He, she, it calls him-, her-, it- self - se llama          

(His-, her- its- name is)

We call ourselves (our name is) - nos llamamos
You (plural) call yourselves (your name is) - os llamais
They call themselves (their name is) - se llaman

In Spanish, when a sentence ends in either an exclamation point, or a question mark, there is an upside exclamation point or question mark at the beginning of the sentence, as well as a 'right side up' exclamation point or question mark at the end of the sentence.