Basic Utility Modules

This chapter lists various basic functional modules involved in Spanish.

Interrogative Pronouns

Spanish interrogative pronouns basically correspond one-to-one with English.

Note that quién and cuál are affected by number (singular/plural). Cuantos and cuánto correspond to how many (plural) and how much (singular) respectively, and both are affected by gender.

Articles and Demonstrative Pronouns

Un in the table, corresponding to English indefinite article a, is actually the number uno (see the "Numbers" section below for details), but when followed by a masculine singular noun, it is "curtailed" — o is removed — so it becomes un. If used alone (corresponding to the usage of one in English), keep the complete uno.

Note that Spanish further subdivides that/those: the upper row (ese/esa/esos/esas) refers to things far from the speaker ("me") but close to the listener ("you"), while the lower row (aquel, la/aquellos, as) refers to things far from both "me" and "you".

Preposition-Article Contraction

The article el contracts after the prepositions a and de:

a el -> al

de el -> del

We will see actual examples in the next section.

Prepositions and Prepositional Case

de (from / of / 's)

Soy de China. (I am from China.)

el libro de Juan (Juan's book)

el libro del profesor (the professor's book) del = de el (contraction)

un vaso de agua (a glass of water)

vaso de papel (glass made of paper) Here de = made of, distinguish from context

a (to / at)

ir al banco (go to the bank) al = a el (contraction)

Veo a Juan. (I see Juan) "See" in Spanish requires the preposition a after it

a las ocho (at 8:00) See "Days, Dates, Time" section for details

en (in / on / at)

For "at/in/on" indicating location, Spanish does not subdivide as precisely as English, uniformly using en. The specific location relationship (in/on/at) needs to be inferred from the context.

Estoy en el carro. (I'm in the car.)

Estoy en el autobús. (I'm on the bus.)

Estoy en la estatión. (I'm at the station.)

Of course, the "precise subdivision" of in/on/at location relationships in English is sometimes just purely linguistic habit and does not necessarily have any logical meaning. For example, in the car and on the bus above both mean inside the vehicle, but using in and on respectively is purely out of habit.

para (for / to / in order to)

Es para ti. (It's for you.)

Es para el lunes. (It's for Monday.)

Voy para Madrid. (I go to Madrid.)

¿Comer para vivir, o vivir para comer? (Eat to live, or live to eat?)

por (for / because of)

Lo hago por ti. (I do it for you. / I do it because of you.)

Estudio español por la mañana/tarde/noche. (I study spanish in the morning/afternoon/at night.)

Camino por el parque. (I walk through the park.)

Dormi por 8 horas. (I slept for 8 hours.)

Pagué 20 por esto. (I paid 20 for this.)

Note that para and por often correspond to English for, but their meanings are completely different. This is because for itself contains two logically opposite meanings: 1. Goal 2. Cause. The former corresponds to para in Spanish, while the latter corresponds to por.

con / sin (with / without)

cafe con leche (coffee with milk)

agua sin gas/hielo (water without gas/ice)

Prepositional Case

In the examples above, there are cases where pronouns follow prepositions. In this case, pronouns should change to Prepositional Case. See the table below for prepositional case changes. Actually, only the prepositional cases of yo and tú change form separately.

A special feature of the preposition con is that it undergoes "special contraction" when connecting with mí and ti:

• con mí -> conmigo (with me)

• con ti -> contigo (with you)

• con él (with him) No contraction

Prepositions followed by Nominative

In addition to the common prepositions above, there are the following prepositions. Their specialty is that they are followed by the subject (nominative). These prepositions followed by the subject have their own logical reasons, but we will not delve into them here, just memorize them directly.

Note that there are three excepts in Spanish, meaning basically the same.

Conjunctions

Spanish conjunctions can be simply mapped from English conjunctions, and their usage is basically consistent with corresponding words in English.

Numbers and Ordinal Numbers

Note that numbers starting from 16 enter the "formulaic word formation" range:

• 16~19: diec+i+6/7/8/9 (=diez y 6/7/8/9)

• 21~29: veint+i+1~9 (=veinte y 1~9)

Take 16 as an example, it is literally "10 and 6". But the "Sound-based Principle" plays a role again here: first y becomes vowel i after entering the syllable; and i when paired with consonant [s] can only be realized by c, so the previous z changes to c.

Note that there is a Curtailment Rule above: when the number uno (and its derivatives, such as veintiuno) is followed by a masculine noun (that is, when not used alone), it should remove -o and become un. This is the origin of the masculine definite article un, which is actually uno curtailed. And if it is followed by a feminine noun, it changes to -a, such as veintiuna gatas.

About stress: The pronunciation of 20~29 always "anchors" the stress on the original stress position of the single digit. If the stress might drift because veinti is added in front, a stress mark is needed to explicitly "pin" the stress in this position (keep the stress position unchanged), such as veitiún, veintidós. And veinticinco is actually equivalent to veinticínco, but because veinticinco according to the rule naturally has the stress on the cin syllable, so no stress mark is used.

Starting from 30, numbers become more regular:

Note that 30~90 is the root of 3~9 + i/enta

31 = treinta y uno, 32 = treinta y dos,... and so on.

The first 10 ordinal numbers are shown in the table below.

Note that all ordinal numbers have "Gender-Number Four-Piece Sets", that is, the default masculine singular ending -o needs to be replaced with -a, -os, -as according to gender and number.

And the words primero and tercero also have the same "Curtailment Rule" as uno (curtailed when followed by a masculine word). So when used as adjectives, their "Gender-Number Four-Piece Sets" are as follows:

primero: primer / primera / primeros / primeras

tercero: tercer / tercera / terceros / terceras

Note: Starting from the 11th, the number itself is generally used as the ordinal number in daily life, and special ordinal numbers are no longer used (although special ordinal numbers do exist).

Days, Dates, Time

Days of the Week

Note that when using day x, a definite article (el/los) should be added in front, but no preposition is needed, see the example in the table.

Dates

Spanish "Month X Day X" expression is similar to British English: the *th of [month] (e.g. the 4th of July). The following table lists the names of the 12 months, and selects a representative day for each month as an example.

Time

The format of stating time in Spanish is: es/son las [horas] y [minutos]

Note that es is used for 1 o'clock, and son is used for all other times. The following table lists some representative Spanish time expressions. The main significance of the second column of this table is to demonstrate how time should be read in spoken language, while written language generally uses the globally common way in the first column.

Note: Because hora (hour) is feminine and minuto (minute) is masculine, the numbers indicating hours and minutes must use feminine and masculine respectively. This can be clearly seen from 1:01. It can be considered that the complete expression of 1:01 should be la una hora y un minuto, but hora is generally omitted.

If you have read this far in order, then we have explained all the "Basic Components" of Spanish, preparing for the next step of learning the core of Spanish grammar — Tenses and Conjugation.