You will notice that Spanish days are not capitalized; they are treated like ordinary words. They are capitalized when starting a sentence or standing alone, such as when used in a calendar. However, el often, but not always, precedes the day in question.
No me gustan los lunes. (I don’t like Mondays)
Sábado es el mejor día de la semana. (Saturday is the best day of the week.)
El domingo es para descansar. (Sunday is for rest.)
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.
In Spanish, greetings are called saludos, and for something as simple as a hello, choosing the correct Spanish word to match the occasion can sometimes be confusing. Don’t worry about formal and informal structures, we will be covering those in a later lesson, as well as how some of the words below can change meaning depending on emphasis and context. This is a vocabulary lesson.
Mucho gusto is a polite general greeting / hello when you meet someone for the first time.
As in many other languages, there are different words for colors in Spanish, depending on hue and local usage. The Spanish words for the colors below are common usage for much of Mexico.
*note – naranja is orange, as in the fruit. Anaranjado is the color. In some areas this same principal applies to rosa, but we use rosa for the color pink and rosado for skin rash.
Basic Spanish Colors
Blue
Azul
Green
Verde
Red
Rojo
Yellow
Amarillo
Orange
Anaranjado
Pink
Rosa, Rosado
Purple
Morado, Púrpura, violeta
Brown
Café
Gray
Gris
Black
Negro
White
Blanco
Below is a simple application that has audio and will help with your pronunciation. You will need the Adobe Shockwave (not Flash) plugin. Continue Reading »
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.”