Why do foreigners find Spanish grammar hard?
Spanish is a Romance language that originated in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a global language with nearly 500 million native speakers, mainly in Spain and the Americas. It is the world’s second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese, and the world’s fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi.
Learning a new language is never an easy task. Each language has its own particularities and Spanish is not the exception. From the subjunctive to reflexive verbs, Spanish grammar has its good share of tricky concepts.
While some new learners of the language may find one concept particularly difficult, others struggle with a completely different one. However, when I tried to pin down the top 10 Spanish grammar concepts hardest to master, I found out that most Spanish students mention the same ones.
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Some common difficulties you might encounter as a non english speaker when you learn Spanish are:
1)Spanish Verb Conjugation Patterns:
The verb conjugation is the variation of verbs based on the person doing an action/the time an action happens.
In English, it’s relatively simple.
In Spanish, the conjugation of verbs is much more varied. We’ll take a look at the simple present and past tense with the Spanish verb hablar (to talk).
- Yo hablo (present); Yo hablé (past)
- Tú hablas (present); Tú hablaste (past)
2) Gender-specific Nouns
In Spanish, nouns are gendered. Most times, gender is easy to spot as feminine nouns almost always end in -a and masculine nouns almost always end in -o. But for best results in noting the gender of the word, pay closer attention to the article!. If it’s a feminine noun it uses la, and masculine nouns use el:
la casa – the house
el perro – the dog
3) Ser and Estar
One of the hardest Spanish grammar concepts to grasp for learners of the language is the use of the verbs ser and estar. Both verbs translate as “to be” and native English speakers find it really hard to know when to use which.
4) Irregular Verbs
A common moment of despair for most Spanish learners is when they’ve already mastered the many conjugations of regular verbs and then discover the irregular verbs. With this kind of verbs, the usual conjugation rules don’t apply, and you need to learn the unique conjugation for each of these verbs.
I know that I just said that memorizing stuff is not the best way to learn a new language, but in this case, there is no other way. You need to memorize the irregular verb conjugations and then practice them a lot.
5) El Subjuntivo
In Spanish, besides all the different tenses, there are three moods: indicative, subjunctive, and imperative. The indicative is the “normal” one, the one you study at the beginning of your learning process. The imperative is used just to give orders or warnings. And then, there’s the subjunctive, which is a bit more complicated.
Some common difficulties you might encounter as a non english speaker when you learn Spanish. contd
6) Reflexive Verbs
First, keep in mind that the reflexive verbs are just one of six different groups of pronominal verbs.
Now, a reflexive verb is always accompanied by a reflexive pronoun (hence the name) such as me, te, and se. Some verbs may change their meaning if used depending on if they are being used in their regular or reflexive form.
7) Prepositions
You use prepositions to connect different parts of a sentence such as nouns and pronouns. In Spanish, you have 23 prepositions to work with and then you also can use prepositional phrases. The concept of prepositions is not that hard to understand, the problem is to master their use and, once again, that only comes with practice.
8) Past Tense: Pretérito or Imperfecto
In Spanish, you use the preterite tense to describe actions that were completed in the past. On the other hand, you use the imperfect to describe actions that repeat or that are ongoing. Using the preterite can be tricky sometimes, especially with irregular verbs. However, the big problem is not really the conjugations, but learning when to use which of the past tenses.
9) Direct and Indirect Pronouns
Using direct and indirect pronouns alone is quite straightforward.
You may already know the direct pronoun substitutes the direct object and answers the questions “Who?” or “What?,” while the indirect pronoun substitutes the indirect object and answers the questions “To whom?” or “For whom?.”
10) Gustar: To Like
Gustar and other similar verbs constitute a group of special verbs that do not act “normally.” Let’s first take a look at how we use “to like” in English sentences:
I like dogs.
I = subject
like = verb
dogs = direct object
He likes Spanish movies.
He = subject
likes = verb
Spanish movies = direct object
So when talking about likes in English, we use the subject plus the verb (to like), followed by the object that is liked. But this is not the case in Spanish!
Take a look at the Spanish equivalents of our first two examples, and pay special attention to the literal English translations
Finally,
Now that you know which are the hardest Spanish grammar concepts to master, start practicing them live so that you can master them faster! Sign up for a online class with one of our native Spanish-speaking teachers to get started today.
All the best!!!