My Free Spanish

There are a number of ways to create Spanish accents and characters on your computer. I find the easiest is by using the ALT key codes. Another way is to use the Windows Character Map utility. I won’t get into these methods, as there are thousands of pages on the web covering this.

I wanted to share an application with you that was originally built to help me type Spanish characters a little faster because I can’t remember all the Alt codes and I find the Character Map too slow. I call it spanish-character.exe, but my wife objects to grouping the whole under terms like characters and accents, but to me that’s what they are. She says that some are accents and some are letters of the Spanish alphabet. If I have to use codes to access them, they are characters. So, here is the link to the program: Spanish Characters. (Windows only - no install required.)

To use it just select the character you want to use and it will be copied to the clipboard. Then go to the application you’re working in and paste or Ctrl+V to insert the character, Spanish accent, letter, or whatever you want to call it.

As I originally built this for myself and have only tested it on one OS, any feedback would be appreciated.

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Basic communication is usually the first goal for people wanting to learn a new language. There are many reasons people want to learn Spanish, but they all come down to one thing, communication.

Over the next few lessons we will be covering three phrase bases that will get you speaking immediately. For me, these represent the bare essentials needed when traveling in a Spanish speaking country. I chose these phrases within the context of travel, because wanting to communicate with the locals while on vacation is a very common reason for learning basic Spanish.

While what I consider essential can, and I’m sure will, be argued, the links to the pages below are a start for someone with a week or so of prep time.

Essential Spanish phrases:

• where ( ¿dónde?).
• have ( tener ).
• want ( querer ).

This page will be updated as content is added.

This is another basic Spanish vocabulary lesson. A few notes before we start. First, some numbers change slightly depending on the gender of the noun they’re coupled with. For examle, un niño and una niña. Notice that we didn’t use uno for niño; uno is used in counting or when replying to someone asking if you want more. You would say, “Un taco, por favor”, when ordering, but when asked if you would like more, you could reply, “Sí, uno más, por favor.”

Another number that often gets confused is 500 - quinientos - not cincocientos. Also in Spanish, a number like 1,400 is shown as 1.400 and is always spelled and pronounced as mil cuatrocientos, not catorcecientos or fourteen hundred. We’ll cover this more in future lessons within the context that gives rise to such confusion, such as when dealing with dates.

To further confuse this, it is common to see different spelling for certain numbers. The numbers 16 to 19 and 21 to 29 can be written two different ways, Veinte y cinco or veinticinco. The later is used today in Mexican schools, but the other way is still common and widely used.

Below is a list of numbers and below that is a Shockwave application to help with pronounciation and to test your listening skills.

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