Learn Spanish for beginners: Lesson 1

Listen to these words and see if you can work out what they mean. There are a lot of words that are exactly the same in Spanish like hospital, un hospital, an animal or a pet and chocolate all spelt the same and we'll come back to those words in a minute but first let's look at importante and urgente. They're the same as in English except we add an e on the end and there are a lot of words like this words that end in ant or ent whereas in Spanish you just add an e on the end. So we've got importante, urgente. So just to make it stick, write down these words in Spanish. Arrogant, constant, instant and you should have arrogante, constante, instante. The word for it's, it's big, it's small, is es. How would you say it's important? Es importante. How would you say it's instant? What about it's different? It's different and in Spanish different only has one f. What about it's an elephant? It's an elephant and instead of ph we have an f in elephant. So how would you say it's an elephant? Es un elefante. We're going to learn a pair of words now to say for me and for you and it's advisable initially to write down the vocabulary as we go along so that you can refer back to it when you need to. So for me and for you. Para mi and para ti. For me para mi and for you para ti. Para mi for me and para ti for you. And para which is the word for, it's spelt p-a-r-a and then mi is m-i with an accent so for me is para mi and for you para ti is again p-a-r-a the word for para or for and u-t-i ti para ti. So para mi and para ti for me and for you. How would we say it's for you? It's for you. Es para ti. Es para ti. And what about it's important for me? It's important for me. How would we say that? It's important for me. Es importante para mi. How would you say it's different for you? It's different for you. And how would we say it's urgent? It's for you. It's urgent. It's for you. Es para ti. Es urgente. Es para ti. If we want to say it's not or it isn't, we just say no es. No es. And no spelt n-o. No, no. No es. It's not or it isn't. So how would we say it's not for me, it's for you? No es para mi. Es para ti. No es para mi. Es para ti. And what about it's not important for me? It's not important for me. No es importante para mi. What about it's not something for you? It's not something for you. And the word for something is algo. A-L-G-O. A-L-G-O. Algo. It's not something for you. What would that be? No es algo para ti. No es algo para ti. And using algo again, something, how would we say it's something important? Es algo importante. Es algo importante. The word for I have, I have, is tengo. Tengo. T-E-N-G-O. Tengo. I have. What would the sentence be? I have something for you. I have something for you. Tengo algo para ti. Tengo algo para ti. What about I have something important for you? Tengo algo importante para ti. Tengo algo importante para ti. Let's see if you can remember back to what the word was for a pet. A pet. And it was the same as something else. How would we say I have a pet? Tengo un animal. Tengo un animal. So I have a pet. Tengo un animal. We can also say tengo una mascota. Una mascota, like a mascot. Tengo una mascota. How would we say I have a pet? It's a dog. I have a pet. It's a dog. And the word for a dog is un perro. Un perro. P-E-R-R-O. Un perro. A dog. And perhaps to help you remember, un perro is a dog. You can imagine a dog eating a pear. I have a pet. It's a dog. Tengo un animal. Es un perro. Tengo un animal. Es un perro. So I have is tengo. I don't have is no tengo. No tengo. N-O. No tengo. How would you say I don't have a pet? No tengo un animal. No tengo un animal. Or no tengo una mascota. What about I don't have a dog? No tengo un perro. No tengo un perro. Okay, a new pair of words. We want to say good and bad. Good, bad. And it's bueno and malo. Bueno, malo. Bueno and malo. Bueno, good, is spelt B-U-E-N-O. Bueno. And there's a chocolate bar called bueno. It's very good. Bueno. And malo. M-A-L-O. Bad. Malo. So bueno and malo. Good and bad. How would we say it's bad? Es malo. Es malo. What about it's not good? No es bueno. No es bueno. What about I have something good for you? I have something good for you. Tengo algo bueno para ti. Tengo algo bueno para ti. If we want to say you have or do you have, we say tienes. Tienes. T-I-E-N-E-S. Tienes. Tienes. So you have or do you have. Tienes. Tienes. How would we say do you have something for me? Do you have something for me? ¿Tienes algo para mí? ¿Tienes algo para mí? What about do you have a dog? ¿Tienes un perro? ¿Tienes un perro? What about do you have something different? ¿Tienes algo diferente? ¿Tienes algo diferente? If we remember the word for it's, we know that it's es. Es. And if we want to change it from it's to a question, is it, it's exactly the same. The only thing is that the intonation, the tune of the voice changes a little bit. So it's for me is es para mí. Is it for me would be es para mí. Just change the tone of our voice. Es para mí. So how would we say is it for you? Es para ti. Es para ti. What about is it something bad? ¿Es algo malo? ¿Es algo malo? What about is it something important? ¿Es algo importante? ¿Es algo importante? The word for I want, I want is quiero. Quiero. Q-U-I-E-R-O. Quiero. Quiero. I want. I want. Quiero. How do you say I want something good? I want something good. Quiero algo bueno. Quiero algo bueno. How about I want a pet but I don't want a dog. I want a pet but I don't want a dog. And the word for but is pero. P-E-R-O. Pero. Very similar to the word for dog but there's only one R. Pero. And of course it's very important to tell the difference between your dog and your but. So it's un perro for a dog, double R, and pero, but, just one R. So our sentence is I want a pet but I don't want a dog. Quiero un animal pero no quiero un perro. Quiero un animal pero no quiero un perro. How would you say I don't want something bad? No quiero algo malo. No quiero algo malo.