How to Learn Spanish in 30 Days

Giovanni Sordelli

• Publisher: HOW2 Edizioni
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9788893055376
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Spanish Language
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book will allow you to learn Spanish in only 30 days, starting from scratch. And this is more than a simple promise. Let me explain…
The method is very simple: this book is divided in 30 chapters, one for each day, to let you learn the basics of this language in just one month. To make the most of this course, you just need to follow one rule: reading one chapter every day, no more, no less. If you follow this rule and the guidelines included in this book, the result is guaranteed. Forget about the usual boring grammar courses, with their impersonal style. “ How to learn Spanish in 30 days ” has been created with all the trappings of self-help, as a practical manual, with a personal, fun and motivational touch. It is full of many curious anecdotes and useful pieces of advice not only to speak in Spanish, but also to help you while travelling. If you are still not convinced, keep reading… FROM THE PREFACE… (…) You are going to tell me: “ so, in 30 days I will be able to learn an entire language?! ”. The answer is YES!
First of all, as any valuable product, it has brilliantly passed the quality check: friends and relatives have tested this manual and the following month they did pretty well with grammar and vocabulary, trust me.
Of course, in 30 days no one becomes a native speaker: but you can build a strong foundation on which to build a beautiful house. Do you get what I mean?
Studying a little bit every day is a secret as simple as it is effective to make the learning easier and quicker.
I will give you the opportunity to analyse in depth every little secret about grammar and vocabulary, and you must really promise me that you will do everything you can to complete this rich training: consult online newspapers, watch films or TV series with subtitles, read a good book with a dictionary next to you, in short take every little opportunity to be in contact with Spanish as much as possible.
Then there will be space for real dialogues in Spanish, the testing ground for your theoretical skills. When you go on holiday to a Spanish-speaking country or you will have to use Spanish in any other situation, you will just want to do your best.
Think about this: one month. 30 days of studying will help you learning a new language, improving your curriculum, immersing yourself in a new and different world. It will be a special month, and you will be satisfied.

1.1. Neither fish nor fowl: B and V
 

Let’s start with a bang. Well yes, these two letters, as a matter of fact, are pronounced in the same way, but beware: their pronunciation is nearly indescribable, since it is represented by a sound exactly halfway between B for Ball and V for Vase. They taught me that in this way and it worked: try to close your lips a little as if to blow gently. Now do not simply blow, but at the same time make a soft sound with your vocal chords: there it is, the pronunciation of these letters is exactly the one of the combination of the blow and the sound.

You just need a bit of practice with some Spanish words (better when you are alone, so you do not look crazy!) and then it all comes naturally. For instance, how would you pronounce “lavar” (to wash) and “lobo” (wolf), maybe put in a sentence like “Yo lavo el lobo”? This exercise is also best done in the silence of your home!

 

1.2. How to pronounce C imitating a snake
 

Try to think about how you pronounce the English word “think”: there, that sound similar to the hiss of a snake is used in all the Spanish words with “ce” and “ci”.

“Think” and “Ciego” are then pronounced in the same way. People who smoke surely need a “cenicero” that collects the ash. There, try to pronounce this word, which is not so easy!
 

Moreover, in the words with “ch”, the letter “h” is not pronounced at all.

 

Any difficulties? No, because if you know the cha cha you are golden!

 

1.3. How to pronounce G imitating a moka pot
 

To learn how to pronounce the words that contain “ge” and “gi” you need to go to the kitchen: make some coffee with a moka pot and try to reproduce its noise as it comes up.
There, this is the exact sound to pronounce words like “gente” and “página”. You will see that the more you practice and read out loud sentences that contain these letters, the pronunciation will become spontaneous and absolutely natural.

 

P.S. Do not worry if the letter “a” in “página” is accented: in a few days I will explain to you the reason. However, it is good to know early on that accents are fundamental in the written language, and they are always used. Ok, let’s move on and focus again on pronunciation.

 

1.3.1. GUE-GUI: watch out!
 

In this case you just need to replace the letter “u” with “h”, as in the English words “ghetto” and “ghoul”. That being said, how do you pronounce then “guerra” and “guitarra”?

 

1.3.2. GÜE-GÜI: watch out for the diaeresis!
 

There are few words that contain the diaeresis, and beware not to pronounce them for example as in the German words “für”, which means “for”. In Spanish, in fact, the diaeresis indicates that the vowel in question must be pronounced.

A very nice animal (you need to go a long way to see it!) comes to mind: I am talking about the “pingüino”. Without the diaeresis on the vowel, the pronunciation would be mangled. Or, if you go on holiday to the Caribbean Sea and you happen to stay in Nicaragua, you will reside in a “nicaragüense” facility.

 

1.4. H is mute
 

We know that in English the letter “h” (except for some cases) is aspirated. In Spanish, on the contrary, “h” is mute: you do not need then to aspirate the “h” to say “hora” or “hierba”.

 

1.5. Second coffee of the day to learn how to pronounce J
 

Make another coffee with a moka pot as before, imitate its sound as it comes up and there you have it. Between a sip and another, savour also the fact of understanding how to pronounce “j” next to each vowel. One example? As you may have noticed, I like peculiar animals: so after visiting some nice penguins in the South Pole, why not hopping over to the African savannah to see some “Jirafas” which can be over 5 metres tall thanks to their long necks?

 

An excellent exercise to learn this strange sound: make some fresh coffee with a moka pot and meanwhile leaf through the atlas to looking for the Spanish town of Gijón. While you are searching and the coffee is coming up, keep pronouncing this very strange and very difficult word: the others will then be a piece of cake. Among the others, try to say out loud “general”, “ángel”, “nostalgia” and “original”. They are written in the same way in English, but how would you pronounce them if you were in Spain?

 

1.6. You write it double, but LL is not actually double
 

There is no doubling of the letter “L”, so when we come across words like “Paella” the sound is like the one you pronounce in the word “yes”.

Have you ever been to Barcelona? You might have seen the very strange letter “L·L” somewhere, maybe if you have taken the metro at “Paral·lel” station: in Catalan the dot between the two Ls indicates the doubling of the consonant. Since it does not exist in Spanish, the pronunciation is the one described above.

 

1.7. An ingredient for lasagna? Ñ!
 

Bolognese lasagna is so good, is it not? Not surprisingly it is the favourite dish of many people, and it is so good that it is highly popular even in Spain: just go into any supermarket, read “Lasañas” and buy it.

Anyway, as far as I am concerned the taste of the homemade one is unique and unmatched.

 

1.8. QUE-QUI: watch out again!
 

These trigraphs cause some problems only at the beginning: indeed, when you learn that the pronunciation is actually the same as the English “ke-ki”, there you have it.

Surely you know the great Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, so the pronunciation is already served on the table!

Or, if you whisper “te quiero” to your partner, you will surely make them very happy.

 

1.9.X: many but little problems
 

The words that contain this letter are very rare, and moreover the pronunciation varies significantly depending on the different Spanish regions, called “Comunidades Autónomas”.
A quite common indication, but still subject to variations, is that at the beginning of a word “x” is pronounced like “s” (xilófono), while it is pronounced normally in all the other cases.

Luckily there are few exceptions, since the numbers of words with “x” is indeed very limited. If this is a problem, you will agree that it is really little and easily solved.

 

1.10. Y: a bit like LL
 

In Spanish as spoken in Spain, correctly referred to as Castilian, the sound of Y is exactly like the one of LL that you already know.

In the rest of the Spanish-speaking world this is actually one of the features that differentiates it from Spain. How? And the others? Be patient, in the next chapter you will find all the answers.

I will just tell you in advance that speaking Spanish in Madrid, in Mexico City or in Buenos Aires is not exactly the same thing, including for a matter of pronunciation of other letters. Enough, I have already said too much!

 

Try to pronounce for example “yogurt” (with the accent on the “u” though!) or Goya, the name of the famous painter.

 

1.11. How to pronounce Z imitating a snake
 

Do you know what a hissing snake sound like? Surely you do, since now you can read words like “Barcelona” or “Cine” (cinema). You do the same with the last letter of the alphabet.

A little trick: in Spanish there are not words with “ze” and “zi”, since their function is carried out by “ci” and “ce” respectively.

An easy example is represented by the number “zero”, which in Spanish is in fact “cero”.

And if we went from Barcelona to Zaragoza? From the pronunciation point of view nothing changes, while geographically speaking it is a whole different story.

 

1.12. How to best pronounce the other letters, like true Spaniards!

The letters that you do not find in this chapter are pronounced exa...

Table of contents

• PREFACE
• 1st DAY – HOW TO PRONOUNCE WORDS CORRECTLY (WITH SOME SPECIAL TRICKS!)
• 1.1. Neither fish nor fowl: B and V
• 1.2. How to pronounce C imitating a snake
• 1.3. How to pronounce G imitating a moka pot
• 1.3.1. GUE-GUI: watch out!
• 1.3.2. GÜE-GÜI: watch out for the diaeresis!
• 1.4. H is mute
• 1.5. Second coffee of the day to learn how to pronounce J
• 1.6. You write it double, but LL is not actually double
• 1.7. An ingredient for lasagna? Ñ!
• 1.8. QUE-QUI: watch out again!
• 1.9.X: many but little problems
• 1.10. Y: a bit like LL
• 1.11. How to pronounce Z imitating a snake
• 1.12. How to best pronounce the other letters, like true Spaniards!
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 2nd DAY – HOW TO DISTINGUISH CASTILIAN FROM SPANISH (YES, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE!)
• 2.1. How to distinguish a Madrilenian from an Andalusian
• 2.2. How to distinguish a Spaniard from the rest of the world
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 3rd DAY – HOW TO BEST START WITH GRAMMAR: ARTICLES, PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND THE PLURAL FORM OF WORDS
• 3.1. Definite and indefinite articles and more!
• 3.2. How to memorize personal pronouns with no stress
• 3.3. How to form the plural of words
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 4th DAY – WAIT, ARE ACCENTS REALLY THAT IMPORTANT IN SPANISH? I DID NOT KNOW THAT!
• 4.1. Approaching accents is a bit like flirting, especially with proparoxytone words
• 4.2. Oxytones and paroxytones: do not worry, they are not medicines!
• 4.3. Monosyllables, those little pests
• 4.4. Encounters between vowels: better not to fight!
• 4.5. One final brief comment (actually, two!)
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 5th DAY – HOW TO AVOID UNPLEASANT SITUATIONS, GAFFES AND EMBARRASSMENT: FALSE FRIENDS (AND THEY ARE REALLY COMMONPLACE!)
• 5.1. Outward friends, every day
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 6th DAY – HOW TO START SAYING THE FIRST SENTENCES IN SPANISH AFTER LESS THAN A WEEK: THE PRESENT INDICATIVE
• 6.1. How to learn auxiliary verbs fast (and with some necessary clarifications)
• 6.2. How to learn regular verbs in the present indicative in few minutes
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 7th DAY - THE IRREGULARITIES OF THE VERBS IN THE PRESENT INDICATIVE. NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT IT IF YOU FOLLOW MY LEAD
• 7.1. Regular irregularities: an oxymoron? Not at all!
• 7.1.1. A little caveat: the pronunciation remains the same, the consonants will adjust!
• 7.2. How to memorize the other irregularities without worries
• 7.2.1. -cer/-cir→-zco
• 7.2.2. With -uir remember the “Y”
• 7.2.3. Out of nowhere a “G” pops up
• 7.2.4. Out of nowhere a “Y” pops up as well!
• 7.2.5. Any other business
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 8th DAY - OK, ALL RIGHT, LET’S TAKE A BREAK. LET’S GO TO SPAIN!
• 8.1. In Spain there is everything and more, for every taste
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 9th DAY - CROSS AND DELIGHT OF SPANISH: “SER”, “ESTAR” AND “HABER”
• 9.1. A “ser” is like a diamond: it is forever
• 9.1.1. How to use “ser” in a se(r)lf-confident way
• 9.1.2. How to use “estar” in a self-confident way
• 9.2. How to best use the verbs “haber” and “estar”
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 10th DAY - ANOTHER CROSS AND DELIGHT: “POR” AND “PARA”. TWO DIFFERENT PREPOSITIONS TO SAY “FOR”?!
• 10.1. How to clearly understand the uses of “por” and “para” without racking your brains too much
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 11th DAY – AN EASY LESSON FOR TODAY, LET’S LEARN NUMBERS
• 11.1. How to memorize cardinal numbers
• 11.2. A quick look at ordinal numbers
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 12th DAY - THE PAST IS THE PAST, BUT THE LESSON ON THE SIMPLE PAST IS NOW!
• 12.1. How to learn the simple past of the regular verbs in a few minutes
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 13th DAY – HOW TO FACE THE IRREGULARITIES OF THE SIMPLE PAST WITHOUT PANICKING
• 13.1. How to memorize a list of irregular verbs easily
• 13.2. A “J” in the simple past
• 13.3. Some strange irregularities, but so strange that there hardly any
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 14th DAY – HOW TO FORM THE PAST PARTICIPLE
• 14.1. How to learn all the past participles in no time
• 14.2. How to use the past participle
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 15th DAY – HOW TO ENJOY AN EXCELLENT SPANISH DINNER. TODAY IT’S ON ME, FROM THE APPETIZER TO THE DESSERT, DRINKS INCLUDED!
• 15.1. How to best choose an aperitif: there is something for every taste!
• 15.2. First course, second course and so on up to the dessert!
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 16th DAY – ON A FULL STOMACH LET’S FACE THE IMPERFECT
• 16.1. How to learn the imperfect in less than ten minutes
• 16.2. Three simple little irregularities
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 17th DAY – HOW TO GET THROUGH A CONVERSATION EASILY MAKING THE MOST OF PAST TENSES
• 17.1. Past and past perfect: how to find your way in the Black Forest
• 17.2. How to remember the main functions of the gerund
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 18th DAY – AN EASY LESSON FOR TODAY: THE PARTS OF THE YEAR AND THE HOURS
• 18.1. Days of the week, seasons and months: the whole year in few lines!
• 18.2. How to be able to tell the time to a Spaniard... sounding like a Spaniard!
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 19th DAY- 50 SHADES AND MORE IN SENTENCES: PRONOUNS, ADVERBS, ADJECTIVES AND PREPOSITIONS
• 19.1. Me, I like learning Spanish
• 19.1.1. Articles and personal pronouns sometimes quarrel
• 19.2. The underworld of adverbs
• 19.3. Some main and important details about adjectives
• 19.4. Many, many prepositions... but fortunately few difficulties!
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 20th DAY – WHICH IS THE FAIREST LESSON OF THEM ALL? MAYBE THE ONE ON THE COMPARATIVE AND THE SUPERLATIVE?
• 20.1. How to avoid terrible gaffes with comparatives: “better”, not “more good”!
• 20.1.1. The irregularities of comparatives
• 20.2. Double effort = double satisfaction. Actually, facing superlatives I would say the greatest satisfaction!
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 21st DAY – TIME WILL TELL. LET’S FACE THE FUTURE, THEN WE’LL SEE
• 21.1. How to learn to know the future without using magic
• 21.2. How to deepen the knowledge of (our) future
• 21.3. Poor future perfect, so ill-treated...
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 22nd DAY – IT IS NOT JUST BULLFIGHTING: SPANISH FOLKLORE IS UNIQUE!
• 22.2. Religiosity as an element of unifying celebration
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 23rd DAY – LET’S HURRY UP AND LEARN THE IMPERATIVE!
• 23.1. Stand at attention: here comes the imperative!
• 23.2. The imperative and the pronouns joined together at the hip
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 24th DAY – AND IF WE LEARNED THE SUBJUNCTIVE TENSES TODAY? I THINK IT’S HIGH TIME!
• 24.1. Simple tenses: present and imperfect
• 24.2. Compound tenses: perfect and past perfect
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 25th DAY – LET’S KEEP GOING AND LEARN HOW TO USE THE NEGATIVE IMPERATIVE! AFTER THE SUBJUNCTIVE?! WELL YES, THERE’S A REASON!
• 25.1. Don’t waste time: let’s face the negative imperative (with all the etceteras)!
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 26th DAY – TODAY WE SHOULD FACE THE CONDITIONAL. ACTUALLY, LET’S JUST DO IT!
• 26.1. How to learn the conditional in no time
• 26.2. How to best use the conditional without being “subjunct-gated”
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 27th DAY – IF YOU HAD NEVER STARTED, YOU WOULD NOT HAVE GOT TO THIS POINT. BY THE WAY, HOW DO YOU FORM CONDITIONAL SENTENCES?
• 27.1. English first, then Spanish: the three conditional sentences
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 28th DAY – HOW DO YOU USE THE SUBJUNCTIVE? I’M WARNING YOU, IT WON’T BE EASY, BUT TRUST ME AND FOLLOW MY LEAD
• 28.1. The subjunctive is quite “tempor…amental”!
• 28.2. I think that the subjunctive is very difficult
• 28.3. The subjunctive likes to be in charge
• 28.4. The light at the end of the tunnel
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 29th DAY – HOW IS IT GOING WITH THIS MANUAL? I HOPE YOU WILL HAVE A GREAT TIME EVEN TODAY, LEARNING HOW TO USE SOME IDIOMS AND SET PHRASES
• 29.1. Many idioms for every occasion
• 29.2. How to sound like a true Spaniard with a few more words
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• 30th DAY - CONCLUSIONS: FOR THE LAST DAY, LET’S GET DRESSED UP (AND FOR THE LADIES A BIT OF MAKE-UP, TOO!)
• 30.1. How to look like a true gentleman
• 30.2. How to let female charm conquer you
• The secrets revealed in this chapter
• GRAMMAR OVERVIEW TABLES
• CONCLUSIONS