Hola! Welcome back to part 4 of the
Rocket Spanish 6 Day Course!

This lesson will show you how the questions and responses that you learned in the previous lesson are written down. Ultimately, being reliant on written Spanish (as opposed to the spoken sounds) can slow you down when it comes to conversing naturally. That’s why I designed my course to teach you spoken language first, with the written language as a backup.

Questions for Clarification

Many people need to visualize a word in their heads before they can accurately repeat and remember it. That’s why they often want to know:

If you’re going to understand the answer, though, you’ll need to be familiar with the Spanish alphabet … which could be tricky at this stage in your learning! So it might just be easier for now to ask,

Or, you may need to ask,

Most people will be happy to clarify what they said for you, so never feel embarrassed about asking!

Introductions

Here’s the conversation that you learned last lesson. A friend has just introduced me and Amy, telling her, “Te presento a mi amigo, Mauricio.” I like to introduce you to my friend, Mauricio. I respond,

This conversation is full of great questions that you’re sure to encounter if you do any traveling to a Spanish-speaking country. Here is the conversation a second time, except in English.

What Do You Say after Hello?

If you’re going to memorize one word to use during introductions, encantado is a good one to pick. It’s fast, easy, and sounds a lot like its English equivalent, “enchanted,” to boot!

If you’re going to use encantado properly, you need to learn one rather awkward aspect of Spanish grammar. In Spanish, everything—from a man to a woman … from a pen to a cup of coffee … from light to lightning—has a gender! In other words, the words for these things are either masculine or feminine.

Take a look at these examples.

Note that in these examples, the words that end in ‘o’ are masculine, while the words that end in ‘a’ are feminine. This is a good general rule to remember at this stage in your learning.

But words for things aren’t the only words with a gender. Describing words (or adjectives) have to reflect the gender of the thing they describe. That means that if you want to say, “I’m delighted to meet you,” the word delighted in Spanish will be different according to whether you’re a man or a woman.

If you’re feeling a bit more confident, try the following:

What’s Your Name?

There are several ways to ask someone’s name is Spanish. The simplest is

Many beginning students make the mistake of thinking that this is a direct translation of the question in English. It’s not! This question actually means:

This sort of thing happens in Spanish a lot. To convey the English meaning of a question, you’ll have to express it in a way that will seem unnatural at first. (Some people think of it as the difference between modern English and Shakespearean English!) But don’t worry … with practice, the Spanish way of saying something will soon become so natural that you won’t be able to remember a time when it seemed strange.

Do you remember the explanation in the second part of this course about formal and informal modes of address, such as ¿Cómo estás? versus ¿Cómo está usted? Well, the same difference applies to the question for asking someone’s name.

To answer this question, you will say,

(or, more literally, “I call myself…”)

Looking back at the conversation you learned earlier, here’s what it will look like.

Mauricio: ¿Cómo te llamas?
Amy: Me llamo Amy.

Where are You From?

Now, things are starting to get even more difficult. Remember how I said that in Spanish, words have to be juggled around a bit? The question, “Where are you from?” is one of those cases. In Spanish, you’ll actually ask:

The word “de” means from, while “dónde” means where. If you can memorize this question, you’ll also be able to ask two other enormously useful questions.

For example, someone may tell you, “Look at that bird!” You can respond, “¿Dónde?” Where?

Eres is a rather strange word. It comes from one of the two “to be” verbs in Spanish, ser. The other “to be” verb is estar. You’ve seen estar already: remember the question, ¿Cómo estás? How are you? You will learn more about the differences between ser and estar as you study Spanish further. For now, just note that there is more than one way to say “you are.”

The question, “Where are you from?” can be asked in two different ways: one formal, one informal.

Your answer will start…

If you’re traveling abroad, your answer will probably look something like this:

If someone closer to home is asking you the question, they probably want to know what city or state you’re from. You can say something like…

How Much Spanish do You Know?

In this ideal situation, you’ll be speaking Spanish so well by this point that your Spanish-speaking conversation partner will think you’re fluent. Hopefully, you’ll hear this comment:

You speak Spanish very well.

Of course you do! … Don’t you?

If you don’t think you speak Spanish very well, or if you want to make sure that the person doesn’t assume that you know more than you do, you can use one of these useful phrases:

If, on the other hand, your conversation partner doesn’t tell you that you speak Spanish very well—in fact, you may find that you simply can’t understand what your conversation partner is saying—here are a few useful phrases to have on hand.

You may have already learned or heard one way to say that you don’t understand in Spanish. Many people think that it is correct to say, “No comprendo.” This sentence is grammatically correct, but it is not commonly used for this context. Would you say in English, “I don’t comprehend”? If so, by all means go ahead and use “no comprendo.” If not, stick to, “No entiendo.”

By the way, did you notice that the word for Spanish is español? It is very similar to the word for the country of Spain, which is España. The word for English is ingles.

Well, that’s it for today’s lesson. In your next email, you’ll receive the final audio lesson for this course. You’ll learn how to introduce yourself to someone in Spanish, how to say where you’re from, and how to explain just how much Spanish you know.

Hasta luego!

Mauricio Evlampieff
Rocket Spanish

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About the Authors:

Originally from Chile, Mauricio Evlampieff is a native Spanish speaker who is passionate about his country’s culture, language and heritage. He is best known for his enthusiasm and insights into the language of his homeland, and has shared this love of the Spanish language and culture with students the world over. His product contains a complete interactive audio course designed to get you speaking conversational Spanish in the quickest time possible. You’ll receive four e-books crammed with grammar lessons, useful words and phrases, vocabulary, exercises, and more! It doesn’t end there. You'll also receive the Rocket Spanish MegaVocab, MegaAudio, and MegaVerbs software-based learning gamess, which you can modify to suit the vocabulary that YOU need to learn. Together, this dynamic and comprehensive Rocket Spanish package will completely transform how you think about learning another language.

Amy Waterman became fluent in Spanish while living and working in the Andes Mountain region of Ecuador. Her extensive experience in Spanish learning systems led her to formulate the concept behind the Interactive Audio component of Rocket Spanish.