Learning Spanish: How to Understand and Speak a New Language

Looking at elements such as grammar and vocabulary; how to study, practice and learn the language most effectively; identifying Spanish words that are similar to their English equivalents; the five Spanish vowel sounds; basic greetings and responses.

Learning the gender of Spanish nouns by practicing each new noun with its masculine or feminine definite article; how the suffixes of nouns can help identify their gender; making nouns plural; Spanish consonants; the letters of the Spanish alphabet.

The five singular subject pronouns and the seven plural subject pronouns; their use in Spanish-speaking regions; affixing the verb ser in the present tense; simple sentences; Spanish adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number and gender.

Learning Spanish verbs whose infinitives end in ar; conjugating regular ar verbs in the present tense by identifying the verb's stem and adding the correct endings; Spanish adjectives and their placement; pronouncing consonants; cognate adjectives.

Grasping the Spanish indefinite articles; observing how indefinite articles are used in Spanish; counting to 100; practicing simple math problems; completing work with Spanish consonants; making important distinctions in pronouncing b, v, g, d and x.

The verb estar is the second Spanish verb for to be; the uses of estar, as contrasted with ser; affixing estar in the present tense and using it with adjectives describing emotions and locations; counting to 1,000; a note about Spanish pronunciation.

Conjugating two new categories of Spanish verbs; those that end in er and ir; practicing the appropriate endings for the present tense; possessive adjectives and their use in Spanish; three ways of forming questions; vocabulary related to the family.

The irregular verb ir means to go in Spanish; conjugating ir in the present tense; its uses in Spanish; practicing common Spanish interrogatives, words used in asking questions; looking at effective ways to remember new words and build vocabulary.

Telling the time of day in Spanish; expressing the hour and minutes; important vocabulary relating to time; the days of the week and vocabulary regarding days and dates; the months of the year; forming questions relating to time, dates and seasons.

Learning tener (to have), an important irregular verb; conjugating tener; learning expressions using it regarding physical conditions, emotional conditions and age; more vocabulary related to the family; strategies to excel as a language learner.

Studying the verb hacer (to make or to do); the familiar expressions that use it; similar verbs include poner, salir and traer; a deeper look at Spanish interrogatives; talking about punctuation in Spanish and discovering how it is used.

The two verbs, saber and conocer, carry the meanings of the English verb to know; their conjugations, their differences in meaning and uses; new verbs that are conjugated like conocer; Spanish prepositions; those that describe spatial relationships.

Irregular Spanish verbs; the stems of their conjugation; how to conjugate verbs of this type; a range of new verbs; prepositional pronouns; rules for which syllables to stress when pronouncing Spanish words.

Delving into the history of U.S. place names that are derived from Spanish; the names of five states; key irregular verbs; important guidelines for conjugating them; excerpts from a Spanish newscast; the value of listening to the news in Spanish.

The present progressive is a useful grammatical construction in Spanish that describes something that is in progress right now; how to form and use the present progressive; how its use in Spanish differs; vocabulary related to dining and meals.

Vocabulary concerning food and drink, focusing on breakfast and lunch; studying direct object pronouns that replace direct object nouns; their uses and placement in Spanish; Spanish adverbs; common words used to modify verbs and adjectives.

Spanish demonstrative adjectives; vocabulary about dinner; ways to create both affirmative and negative statements in Spanish; learning about regional differences in the language.

Vocabulary describing colors; words describing clothing; Spanish affirmative and negative adjectives which can also be used as pronouns; how to pronounce vowel combinations, diphthongs, and triphthongs in Spanish.

Working with vocabulary related to clothing; practicing how to describe clothing; Spanish indirect object pronouns; verbs that commonly use them; some additional strategies for learning and remembering new vocabulary.

Words relating to rooms and furnishings in a house; how to say ordinal numbers in Spanish; how to use indirect and direct object pronouns together; some important expressions using the verb pensar.

Reflexive verbs are those for which the subject and the object of the action are the same; how these verbs function in Spanish; commonly used examples; the uses of the verbs ser and estar that signify being.

Vocabulary relating to motion and travel; common reflexive verbs that describe mental and emotional states; two useful constructions for speaking about the past; acabar de describes something that just happened.

Two common constructions that ask how long someone has done something, and how long something has been going on; words about leisure activities, household chores, and romantic relationships; strategies to improve speaking skills in Spanish.

Words relating to places, such as public venues and businesses; how to say formal commands; negative commands; using them in different contexts; how to compare two things that are not the same; two effective approaches to remembering grammar rules.

Practicing informal commands, both affirmative and negative; their important irregular forms; vocabulary relating to the human body; commands referring to the body; how to use pronouns with commands; commonly used command forms in Spanish.

Vocabulary relating to sports and outdoor activities; investigating the importance of soccer in Spanish-speaking countries; how to make comparisons involving actions, numbers, and things that are equal; how to express superlatives.

The preterite tense expresses actions completed in the past; how to use this tense in Spanish; how to conjugate regular verbs; how to make preterite conjugations easy to remember; practicing with new vocabulary used in describing past events.

The preterite tense; expressing past actions with regular verbs, stem-changing verbs and irregular verbs; some Spanish verbs actually change meaning in the preterite tense; important adjectives that describe inherent characteristics of something.

Working with the full range of Spanish verbs that are irregular in the preterite tense; studying the present and preterite tenses; the hardest verb conjugations in the Spanish language; vocabulary about work and money.

Vocabulary regarding professions, technology and the Internet; verbs that are commonly used with prepositions; the preterite tense; looking at ways to have an immersive experience with Spanish; a preview of a second level of Spanish study.