Lesson 3 — Introducción a la gramática

Articles
As in many languages, Spanish gives each noun a gender: masculine or feminine, both for singular things and plural ones.

Spanish, like English, has two articles: the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a" or "an"). However, there are 4 forms, depending on the number and gender of the noun. The plural indefinite article is "some" in Spanish.

If the noun ends in a vowel, to make it plural, add s (gato - "cat"; gatos - "cats").
If the noun ends in a consonant, to make it plural, add es (papel - "paper"; papeles - "papers").
Happily, the gender of Spanish nouns is usually pretty easy to work out. Some very simple rules-of-thumb:

If it ends in a, d, z or ión: it's likely to be feminine.
If it ends in o, a consonant: it's likely to be masculine.

Regular Verbs
We have already seen the present tense conjugations of two Spanish verbs, llamarse and tener. However, both of these verbs are irregular verbs. Luckily, most verbs follow an easy to understand conjugation scheme.

In Spanish, the conjugation depends on what the last two letters of the infinitive are. The infinitive form is the form that is given in the dictionary. An example of an English verb in the infinitive might be to run or to speak. Spanish verbs in the infinitive end with "-ar", "-er" or "-ir" (first, second and third conjugation respectively). To conjugate them, remove the ending ("-ir", "-er" or "-ar") and add the desired suffix.

Unlike English, Spanish verbs conjugate depending on the person; That is, they change depending on who is being talked about. This occurs in English in the third person singular (highlighted below) but in Spanish this occurs for every person. As a result, pronouns are usually omitted because they can be inferred from the conjugation.

More examples
Llorar ("to cry"): lloro, lloras, llora, lloramos, lloráis, lloran
Cocinar ("to cook"): cocino, cocinas, cocina, cocinamos, cocináis, cocinan
Comer ("to eat"): como, comes, come, comemos, coméis, comen
Leer ("to read"): leo, lees, lee, leemos, leéis, leen
Vivir ("to live"): vivo, vives, vive, vivimos, vivís, viven
Cubrir ("to cover"): cubro, cubres, cubre, cubrimos, cubrís, cubren

Notes
There are many more "-ar" verbs than "-er" or "-ir". Make sure you are most familiar with these endings.
The second person plural is highlighted because that tense is only used in the variety of Spanish used in Spain. In other Spanish dialects the third person plural form is used instead.
When reading texts, you will need to know the person of the verb at a glance. Notice the pattern:
"O" denotes I
"S" denotes You
A vowel that is not "O" denotes He/She/It
"MOS" denotes We
"IS" denotes You All
"N" denotes They

Questions and Exclamations
In previous lessons, you will have noticed that we use the funny upside-down question mark "¿". In Spanish, questions always start with that, and finish with the regular question mark. It is the same for exclamations; the funny upside-down exclamation mark "¡" precedes exclamations.

Questions in Spanish are mainly done by intonation (raising the voice at the end of the question), since questions are often identical to statements. Te llamas Richard means "Your name is Richard", and ¿Te llamas Richard? means "Is your name Richard?".

You can also use questions words, as indicated below.

Examples
¿Con quién?
With whom?
¿Dónde está el banco?
Where is the bank?
¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?
When's your birthday?
¿Qué fecha es hoy?
What is the date today?
¡Hasta luego!
See you later!

Summary
In this lesson, you have learnt:

The Spanish articles (el; la; los; las; un; una; unos; unas).
How to conjugate regular verbs in the present tense (lloro; comes; vive; cocinamos; bebéis; cubren).
How to question people and exclaim in Spanish (¿Cuántos años tienes?; ¡Qué fantástico!)
You should now do the exercise related to each section (found here) before moving on. This is a very important topic for future lessons; it's important that you know it well.

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