Spanish in ten features

Spanish spelling is close to the sound, which is why the accent mark and the double r are doing real work and not decorating. Ten features cover a first conversation. French is the cousin: gender, a polite "you", a past built on "have". Korean will not help with any of that. It will feel familiar only in the politeness choice, tú against usted, the way 반말 sits against 해요체.

Examples here are Latin American in the you plural: ustedes, not vosotros. Spain uses vosotros with its own verb forms. The rest of the ten is shared.

1. The accent mark

The mark shows stress, and sometimes it separates two words that would otherwise be identical.

Default, if there is no mark: a word ending in a vowel, n, or s stresses the second-to-last syllable. A word ending in any other consonant stresses the last syllable. The mark is the exception to that default.

hablo — I speak. Stress on ha. habló — he or she spoke. Stress on bló. The mark moved it.

Questions and exclamations wear inverted marks at the start as well as the end. ¿Qué hora es? ¡Gracias! The opening mark tells you the tune before you reach the verb.

• Fun fact: The mark does not change the vowel quality the way a French accent sometimes does. It changes where the beat is, or which word you are looking at. Ignore it and hablo and habló become the same word.
• Intermezzo: Written Spanish is a decent pronunciation guide once those two rules are in your ear. French is the opposite bargain: the letters remember an older sound, and liaison tells you which ones still fire.
• Try: hablo, habló. el café, él. tu libro, tú.

2. Gender

Nouns are masculine or feminine. The article shows it. As in French, learn the noun with the article attached.

-o is usually masculine, -a usually feminine. The useful list is the words that break it.

el día, el mapa, el problema, el sistema — masculine, despite the ending. la mano, la foto — feminine. Foto is short for fotografía.

Agua is feminine (agua fría) and still takes el in the singular, because it starts with a stressed a. El agua, las aguas. Same pattern for el águila. The adjective stays feminine.

• Fun fact: Greek-looking -ma words are masculine: el problema, el idioma, el poema, el programa. One family, one gender.
• Intermezzo: Professions after ser drop the article, and the noun agrees. Soy ingeniero. Soy ingeniera. French does the same with être.
• Try: el libro, la silla, el problema, la mano, el agua fría.

3. ser and estar

Both translate as "to be". They are not interchangeable, and the pairs are stable enough to trust.

Events use ser for where they happen. La reunión es en el café. You, standing in that café, use estar. Estoy en el café.

Death and a few results use estar even though they will not change. Él está muerto.

• Fun fact: Some adjectives change story with the verb. Es aburrido — he is boring. Está aburrido — he is bored. Es listo — he is clever. Está listo — he is ready. The adjective is not two words. The verb picks the reading.
• Intermezzo: Korean 이다 and 있다 split "is" into identity and existence. Ser/estar is a different cut. Do not map 있다 onto estar just because both can mean "there is". Hay is "there is". Estar is the location and the state.
• Try: Soy de …, Estoy en …, Estoy cansado or cansada.

4. tú and usted

Tú is one person, informal. Usted is one person, distance: strangers, staff, anyone you are not going to be casual with. Usted uses the same verb as él/ella. Usted es, usted tiene. The distance is in the pronoun and the verb ending, not in a special conjugation of its own.

Plural you in Latin America is ustedes, for friends and strangers alike. Spain uses vosotros for the informal plural and ustedes for distance.

Argentina, Uruguay, and parts of Central America use vos instead of tú, with different endings. Store that it exists. Do not learn the endings until you need that place.

• Fun fact: People drop the pronoun constantly, because the verb already says who. Hablo, hablas, habla. Tú and usted show up when you need contrast or politeness made visible. ¿Usted diría…? keeps the distance. A bare ¿diría…? can too.
• Intermezzo: Offering tú is like being offered 반말, or French on se tutoie. Take it when it is offered. Start a shop, a clinic, and an older stranger on usted.
• Try: ¿Cómo está usted? Then, to a friend: ¿Cómo estás?

Intermezzo — one coffee

Hola. ¿Me da un café con leche, por favor? ¿Para aquí o para llevar?

Me da is usted: "will you give me". A friend would get ¿me das…? Para aquí / para llevar is the here-or-to-go pair, para as destination. Por favor is 주세요's neighbor, ordinary, not stiff. The opening ¿ is why you knew the first word was already a question.

5. r and rr

A single r between vowels is a quick flap. Rr, and a single r at the start of a word, is a trill.

pero — but. Flap. perro — dog. Trill. rosa — rose. Trill, because it starts the word. Enrique — trill after n.

Caro (expensive) and carro (car, cart) are different words. So are pero and perro. This is not an accent. It is a consonant.

• Fun fact: After l and s the r is also a trill: alrededor, Israel. The easy rule you can say aloud: trill at the start, trill when it is written double, flap when a single r is between vowels.
• Intermezzo: French r is the back-of-the-throat one. Spanish r is the tongue-tip one. If you bring the French r to perro, you have changed languages mid-word.
• Try: pero, perro. caro, carro. rosa.

6. ñ and ll

Ñ is its own letter. Niño, España, mañana. The sound is the ny in canyon.

Ll used to be a separate sound, a palatal l. Most speakers now, in Spain and in Latin America, pronounce ll and y the same. This is yeísmo. Calle and caye rhyme. In parts of the Andes the old ll is still different. You can merge them and be in the majority.

• Fun fact: Ñ is not n plus a tilde you may skip. Año (year) and ano are different words, and the second one is not something to say by accident.
• Intermezzo: The alphabet Spaniards recite includes ñ as a letter between n and o, and often treats ll, ch, and rr as their own names too (elle, che, erre). Sorting in an old dictionary can put ll after l. Modern sorting usually folds ll in with l.
• Try: mañana, niño, España. calle, yo.

7. The personal a

When the direct object is a specific person, or a pet you are treating as one, put a in front of it. Things do not get it.

Veo a María. Veo la mesa. Busco a mi hermano. Llamo a mi madre.

Tener does not take it. Tengo un hermano. Tengo dos hermanos.

A specific person you are seeking takes a. Busco a un médico can mean a particular doctor. Busco un médico can mean any doctor, a slot to fill. The a is specificity, not just "human".

• Fun fact: The a is also why a person-object and a subject can both be in the sentence without word-order panic. Vi a Juan. Juan is the one seen, even if the sentence gets rearranged. The a is doing the work a Korean object particle does, on people only.
• Intermezzo: Do not translate this a as "to". Veo a María is "I see María", not "I see to María". The other a, the one that really means to or at, is a different job: voy a casa.
• Try: Veo a … (a person in the room). Veo … (a thing, no a).

8. gustar

Gustar means "to be pleasing", not "to like" in the English direction. The thing liked is the subject. You are the indirect object.

Me gusta el café. — Coffee is pleasing to me. Me gustan las tapas. — The tapas are pleasing to me. Plural, because tapas is plural. No me gusta. — It doesn't please me. I don't like it.

The verb agrees with the thing, never with you. Me gustan, not me gusto, when several things please you. Me gusto would mean you are pleasing to yourself.

• Fun fact: A handful of everyday verbs work this way. Encantar (to delight), doler (to hurt), importar (to matter), faltar (to be missing). Me duele la cabeza. Me faltan diez pesos. Same shape as gustar: the ache and the pesos are the subject.
• Intermezzo: Japanese 好き and Korean 좋다 are closer to this than English like is. The experience happens to you. Spanish just makes the grammar admit it.
• Try: Me gusta el café. Me gustan los tacos. No me gusta el té.

9. por and para

Both get translated "for". The split is cause and channel (por) against purpose, recipient, and deadline (para).

Por la mañana is when, during the morning. Para mañana is the due date.

• Fun fact: Por also introduces the agent in a passive. Fue escrito por ella. She is not the recipient. She is the cause. Para would have meant the text was written for her to receive.
• Intermezzo: In the café, para aquí and para llevar are destinations of the cup, so they are para. Gracias por esperar is the cause of the thanks, so it is por.
• Try: Gracias por el café. La tarea es para mañana. Un café para llevar.

10. False friends

Same trap as French actuellement and Korean 사이다. The familiar shape is the wrong meaning.

Constipado in much of Latin America can mean constipated. In Spain it is a stuffy cold. Resfriado is a cold in both. Use resfriado.

• Fun fact: Embarazada is the one that causes an actual incident. "Estoy embarazada" is news. Embarrassment is estoy avergonzado, or qué vergüenza.
• Intermezzo: Actual and French actuel both mean current. English actual drifted. If you already stored actuellement as "right now", actual is the same drift.
• Try: Read éxito as success the next time a headline uses it. La salida is the door.

First week

1. Ten nouns with articles. Include one traitor: el problema, la mano, or el agua.
2. Four sentences with ser, four with estar. Origin, profession, where you are, how you are.
3. Tú to a friend, usted to a counter. Me da… por favor. Me gusta and me gustan, one each.
4. pero/perro until they are different. Por la mañana against para mañana.

French will feel like a dialect with the sound turned down: same gender, a vous, a past with "have", spelling that hides consonants. Korean is the other direction, verb at the end, no gender at all.