Subject and predicate (to be completed)

1. In general, Spanish follows the SVO pattern in English grammar.
2. A few exceptions to the pattern: (a) An "inferrable" subject can be dropped, i.e. a subject that is originally a pronoun (b) A direct or an indirect object as a pronoun: comes after the subject but preceding the verb (c) Both direct and indirect objects as pronouns.
3. In [2a]: VOiOd (where Oi refers to an indirect object and Od refers to a direct object.)
4. In [2b]: {Sp}OpVOd or {Sp}OpV{Oi} (where {Sp} refers to a subject drop, which is optional; Op refers to an object, direct or indirect, as a pronoun; an indirect object is not compulsory, referred to as {Oi})
5. In [2c]: to be completed.
6. See ejercicios for [2b, 4], changing objects to pronoun, below:

• Notation: Verb/predicator, indirect object, direct object, adverb/adjunct
• Q1. Conozco a tu hermano. 我認識你的兄弟。
• A1. Lo Conozco.
• Q2. Ayer vi una pelicula. 我昨天看了一套電影。
• A2. {Ayer} La vi. / La vi {Ayer}.
• Q3. ¿Vendes tu casa? Si, vendo mi casa / No, no vendo mi casa.
• A3. ¿Vendes tu casa? Si, la vendo. / No, no la vendo.
• Q4

Regular verbs (to be completed)

1. (The infinitive form of) Regular verbs end in either one of the letter clusters "ar", "er" or "ir".
2. Like English, a verb is inflected to reach a subject-verb agreement.
3. Inflection: replacing the ending letter cluster according to the following rules.
4. Example of [3]: Infinitive form Trabjar(=work), its inflected form for person yo is trabjo.

Present indicative

Imperfect indicative

Preterite indicative



Future indicative



Reference: Web article "Spanish conjugation" on Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conjugation

Verb to be

1. Like English, there are irregular and regular verbs in Spanish. The equivalent to verb-to-be in English is "ser", an irregular.
2. Spanish is founded on Latin, an inflected language. Its verbs are inflected for mood (indicative, subjunctive, imperative and conditional), tense (present, imperfect, Preterite=past, perfect, future) and person (yo, tú, él, ella, usted, nosotros, vosotros, ellos, ellas ustedes)
3. Example: Es (infected for person él=he/it, the subject is dropped here) mi moto = This is my motor car.
4. Conjugation tables for regular verbs and some common irregular verbs are available on the web article "Spanish conjugation". The table for ser is reproduced below.
5. Ser de...{name of a place} is a phrasal verb. It refers to the place where a person comes from.
6. Example of [4]: Soy de Hongkong means I am a hongkonger.
7. In [5], the subject yo (=I) is dropped and is implicit in the verb-to-be soy, an inflected form of the infinitive ser.

Reference

1. Web article "Spanish conjugation" on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conjugation

A, An & The

1. The equivalent articles in Spanish are un/una ("a, an", masculino/femenino), el/la ("the", masculino/femenino).
2. The use of the articles a and an depends on the coming phoneme, which is a phonological issue in English, not in Spanish.
3. These articles, like pronouns, demonstratives, adjectives and adverbs, have to reach an agreement in gender with the noun.
4. Ïn addition, el/la (=the) have to reach an agreement in quantity with the noun, their plurals are las/los.
5. Examples of other quantifiers are possessive personal pronoun, muchos/muchas (=a lot of), unos/unas (=some), un poco (=a little), todo (=all), nada (=none), alguno(=any) and numerals (un 1, dos 2, tres 3, etc...)
6. Spanish preposition a means "to" in English. When the article el is preceded by the preposition a, the words are combined into one word as al.
7. Example of [6]: "Vamos a el bar." (means "Go to the bar") becomes "Vamos al bar."
8. In Spanish, a preposition a is needed before a name of a person as an object, direct or indirect, in a sentence.
9. Examples of [8]: Veo a Rosa = (I) see Rosa. The preposition a is not needed if rosa is meant to be a flower. In the latter, an article is needed and the sentence becomes Veo la(=the) rosa(the letter r is not capitalised).

Reference:

1. 何仕凡, Español Básico, 世界圖書出版公司 2003

This & That

1. THIS and THAT have an external frame of reference.
2. In English (and in Chinese), a 2-way distinction is used: THIS (這) (proximal) refers to an object that is close to speakers and THAT(那) (distal) refers to an object that is further away from the speaker.
3. Spanish adopts a 3-way distinction: proximal, medial and distal. They are listed below from [4] to [6].
4. Este/estos(masculino singular/plural), esta/estas(femenino singular/plural) are all proximal: they refer to an object that is close to the speaker.
5. Ese/esos(masculino singular/plural), esa/esas(femenino singular/plural) are all medial: they refer to an object that is close to the addressee.
6. Aquel/aquellos(masculino singular/plural), aquella/aquellas(femenino singular/plural) are all distal: they refer to an object that is far away from both speaker and addressee.
7. The use of masculino(陽性) or femenino(陰性) depends on the gender of the object to which the demonstrative refers.
8. Example of [7]: este vaso (means "this cup" and vaso is masculino), esta mesa. (means "this table" and mesa is femenino)
9. In general, nouns ending in the letter "a" are femenino whereas nouns ending in the letter "o" are masculino.
10. Some exceptions to [9]: mano, moto, foto; mapa, sofá.

References:

1. Web article "Demonstrative" on Wikipedia
2. 何仕凡, Español Básico, 世界圖書出版公司 2003

Personal Pronouns

References:

1. Web article "Spanish pronouns" on Wikipedia.
2. 何仕凡, Español Básico, 世界圖書出版公司 2003

Syllables

1. In Spanish, unlike English, we can simply speak out a word from its orthography (spelling), please refer to the alphabet in "Introduction".
2. A Spanish syllable structure: C1C2S1VS2C3C4 where C represent consonants, S semivowels and V vowels; text in red is the onset, green the nucleus, blue the Coda.
3. C1 and C3 can be any consonants.
4. C2 must follow a C1 which is either one of /p, t, k, b, d, g, f/
5. C4 must be /s/.
6. Assigment of consonant to onset or coda? We first look at the right of a consonant and assign a consonant to the vowel right after it. In all other cases, the consonant is then assigned to the vowel on its left to form a syllable.
7. Example: the word "mesas", "s" in the middle comes together with "a", not "e" and the syllables are me-sas.
8. Stress assignment in a multip-syllable word: (1) Stress on the syllable with a remarked acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú), if any. (2) Stress on the last syllable if a word ends in /r, l, d, z, j/. (3) In all other cases, stress on the one before the last syllable.
9. Vowels are classified into strong vowels (a, e, o) and weak vowels, or semi-vowels (i, u).
10. They can be combined to form a nucleus: most often diphthongs and triphthongs are rare.
11. However, they are not combined to form a nucleus if a semi-vowel is remarked as the acute accent. They are 2 separate syllables instead.
12. Example of 11: co-mí-a.

References:

1. Web article "Spanish phonoogy" on Wikipedia.
2. 何仕凡, Español Básico, 世界圖書出版公司 2003

Alphabet

1. The standard dialect in Spanish is Castilian Spanish.
2. Royal Spanish Academy (RSA) is the governing body of the language.
3. Another is the American Spanish in Mexico and Latin Amercia.
4. The main differences in their pronunciation are: (a) the letter j and the letter g are pronounced as /h/ in American Spanish but /x/ in Castilian Spanish; (b) the letter z and the letter c in front of front vowels /e/ or /i/ are pronounced as /s/ in American Spanish but /θ/ in Castilian Spanish.
5. Spanish alphabet uses the Latin's with 3 additional letters added to the Latin's: ch, ll, ñ, see below:
   
6. "rr" has not been recognized as a letter in Spanish.
7. The letters ch and ll were officially dropped from the Spanish alphabet in 1994.
8. An interactive website for pronunciation of the letters.
9. Declension: infection in pronouns and adjectives for features as number, case, gender and possession.
10. Every noun in Spanish has a gender: either Masculino and Femenino. They are not inflection.
11. Right-branching text alignment.
12. Uses prepositions.
13. Sentence structure in Subject-Verb-Object (SVO); but partially pro-dropped for a subject pronoun, or inferable null-subject, allowing a Verb-Object (VO) sentence structure.
14. English is satellite-framed whereas Spanish is verb-framed.
15. A verb describes both manner of motion and path of motion. A verb in Satellite-framed language shows the manner but use a particle to show the path (e.g. run into). In contrast, a verb in verb-framed language encode the path into the verb (e.g. entrar = go in; salir = go out)
16. Syllable-timed language: each syllable has the same duration regardless of stress.

References:

1. http://www.spanishspanish.com/alfabeto_ipower.html
2. Web article "Spanish language" on Wikipedia
3. Web article "Spanish phonology" on Wikipedia