Spanish conversation lessons for beginners A1.1

Welcome to the Latin American Language Center online course. We hope you are as excited to start your journey towards learning Spanish as we are. LALC wants to thank you for choosing us to be your partner throughout  this journey. We promise to make this learning experience fun.  You made the right decision by taking the first step to learn a new language. In this course you will  learn vocabulary, learn common expressions, learn different tenses, practice conjugations, play games in Spanish, and so much more! We hope that by the end of the course, you are able to have and understand a basic conversation in Spanish. At any point when taking this course, feel free to contact us with any questions you might have. And Have fun! Enjoy!

This lecture explains how to use this course to achieve your goal and become conversational in Spanish. 

We recommend that you read the resources first. It will help you understand how to really take advantage of this course. 

Here we explain the methodology that we use to teach at the Latin American Language Center and reasons why we are sharing this course with you.

In this section we have covered two important parts:  Advice on what you should apply outside this course, and the structure of the course.

It is important that you incorporate Spanish in your daily life and apply it to what matters to you. Always relate it to yourself. 

First, we suggest resources for you to speak with native speakers. Even if you do not have many events in your city (found through Meetup.com) or you are simply too busy, you can still talk with people online. I strongly recommend that you try to find a native speaker in your city because the social component is very important. If you cannot develop a relationship with someone in person you can do it online!

Second, we mentioned that you have to develop your listening skills. Incorporate this as part of your routine. For example, listen to a podcast in Spanish every time you shower, listen to music while you cook, the radio, etc.  Remember that you don’t have to understand everything you hear, but getting used to the accents and intonations of the language is very important.

Third, remember to take the time to do your homework. Do it throughout the week, read something for 10 minutes, then come back to it later. Focusing 10 or 20 minutes at a time is more manageable than doing for 2 or 3 hours, which also isn’t effective. Cramming is never effective. 

Fourth, we are not going to cover all Spanish vocabulary in the class, it doesn’t make any sense. There is just too much vocabulary to learn. Teachers are there to guide you, not to quiz you on the vocabulary all the time. They can, but it is not going to be affordable for you, and it won’t be beneficial either, right?  Take these tips and try them! It will make your Spanish experience more fun and productive.

Try to study vocabulary in context, not just a list of verbs. Relate the verbs to a noun, and also to a place. If you're interested in where to start your vocabulary search we provided a link of 500 most important verbs in Spanish. Which can also be used through the Quizlet app on your smartphone. 

In the second part, we saw the structure of the lessons. It is important to start with a game because that will help you to focus. Play the game for the first 10 minutes before starting the lesson. Next, we go over vocabulary, where we relate the pictures to the pronunciation of the word, and then show you how it is written. The third part of the class is either a function or grammar. A function, as we mentioned, is a short term goal where you learn about a specific topic like ‘how to introduce yourself’ or, for advanced speakers, ‘how to give advice’.  For example, when we teach grammar we use the inductive methodology which forces you to be more active in class by guiding you to the rule by yourself, or we give you an activity so you can try to get to the rule by yourself.  If you can’t, don’t worry, mistakes are a part of learning. We always end the lesson with the conclusion: we will help you apply what you learn orally so that you can practice with a native speaker. We will teach you how to ask a question and put sentences together. Of course, if you are a beginner they will be simple questions and answers, if you are more advanced, the oral practice will be to give you a context or role-play skit.  It is helpful to think or try it because then you won’t have to study much.

The vocabulary is tailored towards the class. This means that you are going to see greetings and important expressions so that you can proceed to introduce yourself.

Remember to take 10 minutes before the course to play a game. It is important to warm up before you start, definitely check out the 'additional resources' list to help you choose a game to play!

When using games we can influence motivation and engagement of the learners in a positive way. Games offer a secure and contextual environment that foster different skill acquisition. Basic skills levels start with eye-hand coordination skills and continue to more complex skills e.g. problem solving skills, communication and collaboration skills, strategic thinking skills, social skills,etc. In a game-like learning environment, learning by doing, active learning and experiential learning, step in foreground. 

This video will teach you "How to introduce yourself". It is a short term goal, but it is important that you begin to learn this because it is the most common conversation you will have when you meet someone. 

Drilling means listening to a model, usually provided by the teacher, or a tape, or another student, and repeating what you hear. The repetition drill is a technique that is still used by many teachers when introducing new language terms to their students. The teacher says (models) the word or phrase and the student(s) repeat it. Repetition is the mother of all skills. 

Also, please check out the additional resources we have attached for you. A quiz, homework, and also links for you to study some countries and other vocabulary that might be related to your life.

Remember: Don't study random vocabulary, study what you actually talk about. We will mention this a lot.

From this lesson forward, find a language partner  in order to practice this lesson (and future lessons) with a native speaker. Exchange English for Spanish with someone. We repeat the resources in this class as well to help you finally take that step! 

Dialogue on "How to introduce yourself"

In this presentation you will learn how to decide when something is masculine or feminine, you will also learn about articles and how to use them within a sentence structure.  You'll soon see, it's not too different from English!

Congrats! You made it here! If you have any doubts please let us know!  You have now seen "Greetings" and "How to Introduce Yourself". Please talk to your language partner and practice the dialogue that we saw. As we continue to see more material, please keep practicing and reviewing with your language partner. 

In this section we are going to learn the "Present Progressive Tense", the "Ing" in English. The main use that we are going to get from this grammar, is how to "catch up".  It is important that everything that we see you learn to use in a conversation.

Remember to always start by playing a game the first 10 minutes of starting the course. 

Benefits of using games:

By using games, we can influence motivation and engagement of the learners in a positive way. Games offer a secure and contextual environment that foster different skill acquisition. Basic skill levels starts with eye-hand coordination skills and continues to more complex skills. For example, problem solving skills, communication and collaboration skills, strategic thinking skills, social skills, etc. In a game-like learning environment, learning by doing, active learning, and experiential learning are very important. 

Remember to repeat and then write it down! 

Personal Pronouns in Spanish are used in the same way as the English equivalents. In this lecture, you will learn how to write and pronounce properly each Pronoun. 

All verbs in Spanish in infinitive have a stem and ending.  An infinitive is the "to ______" verb . These verbs end in /ar/er/ir/. 

This will help you understand how to conjugate.

Please write the conjugation/ending and a stem 

In this lecture you will learn the basic way to construct the gerund, or the 'ing' form of a word in Spanish.  This is used to express an action that is happening in the actual moment. You will have a verb in infinitive and depending on their ending (AR, ER, IR), you will add to the stem of the verb the endings (ANDO or IENDO). 

You will also have a short introduction about the behavior of irregular verbs and the way they are conjugated. 

In this lecture you will learn how the present progressive is formed.  The last lecture introduced how to create verbs in the present progressive, now you will learn how to apply them in a conversation.

Present Progressive is an extension of the present tense that describes something that is happening in the current moment; It is formed with the verb ESTAR conjugated in the present tense plus the verb in its gerund form.  

We encourage you to practice the language skills that you have been learning with your practice partner in order to improve your Spanish!

Congratulations!  You have made it through your first grammar lesson with us!  Believe it or not, at this point you have learned enough vocabulary to hold a conversation with a Spanish speaker.

There are three different uses for the present progressive:

. Expressing what you have been doing lately. (I am working a lot lately) 

. Expressing what you are doing right now at the moment. (I am talking with my mom.)

. Expressing an event in the near future safe future. (I am working Christmas Eve.) 

Learn these and practice with your conversation partner!  You'll be surprised how much more you will learn.  

In this video we will review the two questions you will begin to use in order to start a conversation with your conversation partner and use the Present Progressive. You will also review the phrases mucho (a lot), no mucho (not much), mas (more), menos (less), to add to your sentences... 

-  ¿Qué estás haciendo últimamente?/ What are you doing lately?

- ¿Qué hay de nuevo?/ What's new? 

Ex: Tu estas comiendo muchos vegetales últimamente?/ Are you eating a lot of vegetables lately?

You've made it this far!  Not only do you now know how to introduce yourself but also how to express yourself in a familiar way. We've learned how to use the verb Estar, quite possibly one of the most important verbs in the Spanish language, and how to create the 'ing' in Spanish (ando and iendo) also known as the Gerund. Also, we learned how to apply into a context the verb "estar".  We can use "estar + ing (ando/iendo) to express things that we are doing right now, to express commitments we are going to have in a near future and the most important one for now - to practice orally is, how to catch up with someone. 

Also, at the beginning of each lecture, there will be a quiz in order to see if you have been studying what we saw before. 

Now, it's up to you to put this into practice!  Grab a coffee with your language partner, or schedule a video meeting over Skype...ask them what they have been doing lately!  Have fun and HAPPY STUDYING! 

In this section you will learn the future tense.  You will learn "I am going to go to work tomorrow" and other expressions that will help you speak in the future tense. This is called colloquial future; because it is the one that we use to have regular conversations. Later in the course, we are going to see the formal future which is "I will do" = "lo haré". The one we are seeing in this section is "I am going to do it" = "lo voy a hacer". Let's start the lesson!

Remember to play a game the first 10 minutes of doing this course. 

Benefits of using games:

With using games we can influence motivation and engagement of the learners in a positive way. Games offer also a secure and contextual environment that foster different skill acquisition. Basic skill level starts with eye-hand coordination skills and continues to more complex skills e.g. problem solving skills, communication and collaboration skills, strategic thinking skills, social skills. In game-like learning environment, learning by doing, active learning and experiential learning step in foreground. 

Thank you for tuning in!  In this lesson we are going to introduce you some new vocabulary terms (verbs and nouns) that you can continue to apply to your studying.  You'll also learn how to speak in colloquial future! (look how far you've come!) :D  We'll review in this lesson the pronouns in Spanish and teach you how to apply the future in a conversation! 

Happy Studying!

Please chose the best option according to we just learned. 

In this section we have seen the colloquial future tense therefore you can now talk about events in the future. It is colloquial because it is most commonly used when having a conversation.  Formal future will be seen later (comeré). 

In this lesson, we saw the grammar first and then the expressions that will be used in a conversation. 

The idea is that you use "yo voy a " (I am going to ...), plus a verb in infinitive. Therefore, study the most common verbs that you use in your daily life and also the nouns. Therefore, if you work out "hacer ejercicio", then you will have to know how to say gym "Gimnasio". It is important that you study using this methodology and incorporate it into practice...a conversation. 

Have you found a language partner yet? If not, do so soon!

In this section we are going to learn how to communicate your daily routine by learning the Present Tense. We have to learn how to conjugate and use basic verbs like "I eat". Also, we are going to be learning expressions to add to these verbs, such as "twice a week". The idea is to also learn nouns to add to the sentence such as "eggs"(huevos).  The idea is to be able to build sentences using basic verbs, basic expressions and basic nouns. We will finish speaking by putting this together. 

Example: I eat eggs twice a week. 

Additionally, we will teach you how to ask a question with these sentences. 

For example: What do you do regularly?/ Que haces regularmente?

Answer: I eat eggs twice a week./ Como huevos dos veces por semana.

Remember to play a game! 

Hello again!  In this lecture we are going to see a review of how to ask questions from the previous information we covered. Additionally, you will learn more verbs related to you daily life in order to use them in a present situation. All verbs in infinitive end in ar, er and ir EXCEPT for reflexive verbs, but we are going to see those verbs later. 

This lecture will cover the regular present tense verbs and how to conjugate them. Keep in mind that these are the regular present tense verbs - so there won't be any "funky" business when you conjugate them. Practice conjugating as many regular ar, er, ir, verbs so that you are able to memorize the conjugations (and more verbs) faster!  

Good luck and as always, practice with your conversation partner! 

The Present Tense is used to express routines and things that you usually do on a regular basis. For example, I work, I cook, I exercise, etc. In this video we are going to see useful expressions used with the verb and the nouns. In order to do this, we need to be able to conjugate the verb correctly, according to the pronoun of whom we are talking about (yo, tu, el/ella, I, you, he/she/it) Then, you build your sentence using one of the expressions we learned. Remember, the Present Tense is used to express routines that you do on a regular basis.

For example: I eat chicken often./ Yo como pollo seguido.

Here is a conclusion of what we saw in this section. There is also extra homework attached. 

In this section you will learn about the behavior of the Irregular verbs in Spanish. There are several patterns that Irregular verbs follow, in this lesson you'll learn about stem changing verbs which means that the verbs conjugate in the stem.  You'll see the following patterns:

1. Change E for IE
2. Change E for I
3. Change O for UE
4. The rule of G

Also you will learn the difference between the verbs SER and ESTAR, and you will learn when they are used in Spanish. At the end of this section you will find a lecture that will help you apply the irregular verbs explained here in conversation. 

This is always because it is important that you warm up before you start the course and and ease yourself to concentrate. 

Reminder 

The Benefits of playing a game before starting the lessons are the following:

When using games during a lesson, we motivate and engagement learners in a positive way. Games offer a secure and contextual environment that fosters different skill acquisition.  Basic skill level starts with eye-hand coordination skills and continues to more complex skills for example; problem solving skills, communication and collaboration skills, strategic thinking skills, social skills, etc. In a game-like learning environment, learning by doing, active learning, and experiential learning steps, are crucial for being able to learn Spanish.

In this lesson you will continue to learn and practice the present tense.  The next group of lessons pertains to irregular verbs.  Irregular verbs are named irregular because the verb changes in the stem.  As you saw in the lesson, the endings conjugate like ar,er, and ir verbs.  The stem changing rule you saw in the video is E to IE, O to UE,  U to UE and E to I

With your conversation partner (or alone) you will practice as we have before: the verb plus a noun and expressions which equal your sentence.

¿Qué prefieres tomar todos los días? / What do you prefer to drink every day? 

• Yo prefiero tomar un café todos los días./ I prefer to drink coffee every day.  
• Yo duermo ocho horas por día / I sleep eight hours per day.     
• Yo quiero ir a México / I want to go to México.
• Yo comienzo mi día a las 6 am / I start my day at 6 am.
• Yo siempre digo la verdad / I always say the truth.
• Yo voy al gimnasio todos los días / I go to the gym everyday.
• Yo puedo andar en bicicleta / I can ride by bike.
• Yo vuelvo del trabajo a las 10 pm todos los días / I come back from work at 10 pm every day. 

We will review O to UE, and we will also see U to UE and E to I verbs.  Just like before we recommend you practice with your ball. If you're a kinesthetic learner, this will really help you.  If you're not a kinesthetic learner the ball still helps in that it'll keep you engaged, more so if you incorporate this while practicing with your conversation partner.  

In this class you will learn about some different sounds that exist within the Spanish language; they are formed when specific consonants are combined with different vowels. 

(Ex. The sounds produced when combining letter G with a, e, i, o or u).

You will also study some irregular verbs and the conjugations that change due to this subject. There are some irregular verbs that you have to memorize in order to know their conjugations because they don't follow any rules of conjugation: memorization is key with these!

And we continue to learn more irregular verbs.  

The following set of irregular verbs ONLY change in the first person or in the (yo) form and the rest of the conjugations in relationship with their pronouns STAY THE SAME.  

There are only a handful of verbs that behave this way.  We provide you with a list (in the resources) of most of them; more appropriately the most common ones.  

Study these and try to incorporate them into your practice with your conversation partner in order to memorize them faster!

Hello again!

We still have so much more to learn!  We hope you're having fun while learning and making new friends!  In this lesson you will learn verbs that are not only irregular in the first person (yo), but also follow stem changing irregularity rules in the conjugated forms!  Ouch...sounds tricky, we know!  The good thing is that there aren't that many, just the few seen in the video.  

Again: Continue to incorporate what you are learning when you practice with your conversation partner! 

This lecture introduces you to spelling-changing verbs, which are different some stem-changing in that the change actually happens with the conjugation.  You'll learn most of the changes occur only to continue the sound the letters make in the infinitive verb throughout the pattern.  The great thing about these is that not many exist. Grab a ball, and practice with your conversation partner!  And, as always, have fun!

We're much closer to the end of this unit!  Yay!  You've come so far!

In this lesson we went over the differences between Ser vs Estar and why they are not the same thing.  We provide you with a few rules to lead you in the right direction.  You will also learn two more completely irregular verbs Ir, and, Oir: their conjugations as well as the conjugations for Ser.  

Our advice with these verbs is to always try and memorize them as soon as possible.  As always, take this new information and practice with your conversation partner!  It will make the learning process faster and more fun!

You've made it!!!!

We hope that you have been studying and practicing as much as possible.  Now it is time to take what you have learned and apply it to your conversations sessions with your practice partner.  You can do it!  Make use of the conversation fillers in this video and watch your vocabulary grow! 

In this lecture you learned the different patterns applied to the conjugations of irregular verbs when you are speaking in simple present. One more time, the first thing you should do in order to succeed when you are conjugating verbs is to identify what is the stem and the ending of each verb. At first sight, with irregular verbs you will check them out and you will learn first those that you commonly use, and then you will start conjugating them.

After you have chosen the first irregular verbs that you want to learn, you will use the rules studied:

1. Change E for IE
2. Change E for I
3. Change O for UE
4. The rule of G.

We encourage you every time to find a language partner, and practice with him or her every lesson. You will see that your progress in learning Spanish will be increased.