The Everything Spanish Grammar Book

IN YOUR STUDIES OF SPANISH GRAMMAR, it might be helpful to start by getting an overview of grammar, and how it works in English as well as in Spanish. Remember, you’re not starting from scratch. You already know a lot about grammar because you can speak and write in English.

Despite what it might seem, Spanish and English aren’t all that different. Although English isn’t a Romance language, it was heavily influenced by one. England hadn’t been a part of the Roman Empire for long, so Latin didn’t really get a chance to spread to the local populations. However, when in 1066 French-speaking Normans invaded England and took control, their language merged with Old English, a Germanic tongue, to form what we today can recognize as English.

Moreover, during the Middle Ages and up to the twentieth century, education in Britain included the study of Latin, which might explain why English is now full of long vocabulary words like “excoriate,” “penultimate,” and “prevaricate” (or, more simply, “criticize,” “next to the last,” and “lie”).

To begin, let’s first look at the structure of the sentence and how it works, and then look at the parts of speech that may make up the sentence. Each sentence is made up of two main parts: subject and predicate. Think of the subject as the hero of the sentence. It’s the word or phrase that does the action or carries the description. The predicate is the rest—the action. Generally, but not always, the subject will come before the predicate.

Note that the subject answers the question “who or what?” and the predicate answers what the subject is or does. Take the simplest sentence, “We like it.” Who likes it? We do—so we is the subject. We do what? We like it —here, like it is the predicate. Who isn’t at home today? The girl that I had seen last Friday. The girl that I had seen last Friday is what? She isn’t at home today.

The predicate always includes a verb or verb phrase and may also include a complement. In the previous example, the predicate like i t is made up of the verb like and the complement it . Some verbs can stand alone, without a complement; others cannot.

Subjects and predicates can be further broken down into parts of speech. Spanish and English grammar identifies eight major elements:

Even if you can’t tell the difference between these terms, when you speak you intuitively know which are which and how they should be used. The following sections will define these parts of speech so that as you start learning Spanish grammar, these words will not intimidate you.

If you can match up a word with an article (the, a, or an), it’s definitely a noun, but not all nouns can have one: proper names like John and Spain don’t take on articles in English.

The first thing to remember about pronouns is that they are replacements for nouns or noun phrases. When you keep talking about the same noun, you might get sick of constantly repeating it, so you resort to a pronoun:

In these examples, “he,” “him,” “it,” “her,” and “myself” are personal pronouns. That is, they work to replace specific nouns. Here’s how personal pronouns are categorized in English:

• Subject pronouns replace the subject of the sentence. In English, these are “I,” “you,” “he,” “she,” “it,” “we,” and “they.”

• Object pronouns represent the object noun or phrase. In English, these are “me,” “you,” “him,” “her,” “it,” “us,” and “them.”

• Possessive pronouns show ownership. In English, these are “my,” “mine,” “your,” “yours,” “his,” “her,” “hers,” “its,” “our,” “ours,” “their,” and “theirs.”

• Reflexive pronouns signal that the subject and the object are one and the same. In English, reflexive pronouns are “myself,” “yourself,” “himself,” “herself,” “itself,” “ourselves,” “yourselves,” and “themselves.”

Other types of pronouns might not be as easily recognizable because they don’t necessarily replace a particular noun. Can you figure out which words in the following examples are pronouns?

The pronouns here are “that,” “who,” “which,” “what,” “everything,” “both,” and “each other.” Here is how these pronouns are categorized:

Demonstrative pronouns demonstrate or point something out. In English, demonstrative pronouns are: this, that, these, and those. The word “this” in “I like this” is a good example of a demonstrative pronoun. As you can see, it replaces the thing or object which is liked.

Relative pronouns relate or connect groups of words to nouns or other pronouns. In English, relative pronouns include: who, whoever, whom, which, that, and whose. For example, in the phrase “I like who you like,” the pronoun “who” relates “I” and “you like.”

Many of the interrogative pronouns are identical to relative pronouns, but they are used differently—to interrogate, or ask questions. In English, interrogative pronouns include who, whom, which, whose, and what. In the question “who do you like?” “who” is an interrogative pronoun. Note that in the answer, this pronoun will be replaced by a noun again.

Indefinite pronouns are non-personal pronouns that work as nouns. There are quite a few indefinite pronouns, and many can also be used as adjectives. A few examples in English are: all, none, any, some, everyone, someone, no one, much, little, few, everything, nothing, and something.

Reciprocal pronouns show a mutual relationship between two subjects. In English, there are only two pairs of reciprocal pronouns: “each other” and “one another.”

Remember that a pronoun must represent—and not describe!—a noun or noun phrase. In the phrase, “this sentence,” “this” is not a demonstrative pronoun, because it describes the noun “sentence.” In the phrase, “I like this,” “this” replaces the thing I like, and is therefore a pronoun.

Pronouns replace nouns, and adjectives describe or modify them. Take a look at the following phrases. Can you tell which ones are adjectives?

In these examples, “pretty,” “healthy,” “happy,” “that,” and “many” are all adjectives. As you can see, in English an adjective generally comes before the noun it describes.

At their simplest, verbs are words that signal action or being (think of it as inaction). Action verbs describe what someone or something does, whether it’s in the past, present, or future:

Verbs that show a state of being are known as linking verbs: They link or show the relationship between the subject and the object:

One sub-group of linking verbs are modal verbs—verbs that express mood (can, may, must ought, shall, should) or verb tense (will and would). Modal verbs behave very irregularly. For example, verbs like “can” only exist in the present tense.

It’s no coincidence that the word “adverb” has the root “verb”—one of the adverb’s main roles is modifying or describing the verb. Here are a few examples of adverbs:

In these examples, “quickly,” “often,” and “carefully” are adverbs. Note that many of the adverbs in English are formed by adding the suffix “-ly” to an adjective. In addition to modifying a verb, an adverb may modify an adjective or another adverb:

In the first sentence, the adverb “very” modifies another adverb, “carefully.” In the second, “wonderfully” is an adverb that modifies the adjective “calm,” which in turn describes the noun “night.”

Think of prepositions as words that signal position (physical or otherwise) of a noun or pronoun:

Here, the prepositions “for,” “at,” and “inside” explain where the noun is or how it’s related to another noun (in the case of the first example). Together with the noun and article, a preposition makes up the prepositional phrases, “for you,” “at work,” and “inside the house.” The entire prepositional phrase functions as a complement of the verb. Without the prepositional phrase, the sentences serving as examples would not have been complete.

Conjunctions and interjections play a secondary role in sentences. Conjunctions are words “at a junction”—words that join or relate words or phrases. In English, conjunctions are divided into three groups:

• Correlative conjunctions: conjunctions that work in pairs, like either/or and if/then.

• Subordinating conjunctions: conjunctions that connect a subordinate clause to the rest of the sentence. There are quite a few of these in English; a few examples are: however, since, because, and whether.

Because grammar governs the role of words in a sentence, it also covers agreement (or correspondence) between words in gender, number, case, and person. In English, agreement is rarely an issue because our language doesn’t rely on a whole lot of word endings to communicate information about gender (male, female, or neuter), number (singular or plural), case (role of a noun in a sentence, like whether it’s a subject or an object), and person (first, second, or third). For instance, English nouns don’t have gender, which means they don’t have to agree in gender with articles, adjectives, or any other words. And even in plural form, adjectives and articles do not change:

In Spanish, agreement will require more of your attention. Nouns and pronouns have a particular gender (each one is either feminine or masculine) as well as number, and when paired with articles and adjectives, the endings will change accordingly:

In grammar, “person” has to do with how a noun or pronoun is addressed. In first person, the speaker addresses himself: I am. We are. In second person, the speaker is addressing another person or people: You are. In third person, the speaker is talking about someone or something: He is. She is. It is. They are.

In English, the verb does not need to agree in person or number with its subject (one exception is adding “-s” to verbs in third person singular of present tense). In Spanish, the verb must be conjugated according to the person and number of its subject:

Spanish verbs are conjugated not only according to person and number, but also according to tense and mood. Whereas English verbs only have four forms—present (take), past (took), present participle (taking), and past participle (taken)—Spanish verbs have quite a lot more, as evidenced by the hefty verb books available for purchase. To keep track of all the different endings, it helps to be sure you understand how tenses and moods work.

Languages rely on verb tenses to indicate when the action is taking place, whether the action is ongoing or finite, and whether it’s concrete or conditional (something that “would” be done). In English, as well as in Spanish, the tenses include the present, past, future, and conditional, and each category might have more than one tense. For example, the Spanish language has two simple past tenses, preterite and imperfect.

In addition, both English and Spanish employ compound tenses. In English, compound tenses are formed by the verb “to have” and the past participle form of another verb:

In Spanish, the equivalent tenses are formed with the verb haber and the past participle.

When a verb isn’t conjugated by tense, we use the infinitive form. In English, infinitives are formed with “to”: to walk, to talk, to understand. In Spanish, infinitives have one of three endings: –ar, –er, –ir. Knowing the infinitive form will help you conjugate the verb correctly.

In addition to tenses, verbs are also conjugated according to mood. English and Spanish both have three moods:

Indicative mood: Used to express objective statements. This is the most commonly used mood, particularly in English.

Subjunctive mood: Used to express statements that are in doubt or hypothetical. In the following sentence, the verb “were” is in the subjunctive mood: “If I were younger, I would be able to run quickly.” The subjunctive mood is rarely used in English, but is common in Spanish.

Imperative mood: The mood of command. Examples are: Take this one! Give me the rest! Don’t put it there! Notice that in giving commands, you drop the subject “you.” The same is true in Spanish, but the verb is conjugated differently.

Subject	Predicate
My friends and I	go to the movies every Friday.
The girl that I had seen last Friday	isn’t at home today.
Many students	take Spanish in the morning.
We	like it.

1. interesting							_______________________
2. huh							_______________________
3. made							_______________________
4. humor							_______________________
5. to blame							_______________________

noun	sustantivo
pronoun	pronombre
adjective	adjetivo
verb	verbo
adverb	adverbio
preposition	preposición
conjunction	conjunción
interjection	interjección