Spanish Grammar: A Traveler’s Guide

Traveling somewhere with Spanish speakers? Well, depending on where you are, it can be difficult to navigate if you don’t speak Spanish. This can cause unnecessary stress when you’re just trying to have fun and explore.

Also, knowing basic phrases won’t get you super far if you don’t understand the response or your only option is street signs.

It doesn’t have to be difficult though. You don’t need to speak the full language to find your way around. As long as you understand the basics and know what to look out for, you’ll be good to go.

So let’s go over them. I’ll explain each part of speech and some general grammar so you know how to find what you need.

I’ll also provide some good resources for understanding the language: dictionaries, some useful travel phrases, and my current (and growing) list of country-specific Spanish guides.

Just to clarify: my goal isn’t to teach you the language from scratch. My goal is to provide a guide to the basics of the language so that you will know enough to travel. I would hope that this can serve as a good start for someone aiming to learn the language, but this isn’t intended as a comprehensive language course.

Sentence Structure and Word Order

One of the most important things to learn with any language is the word order. In English, for example, we use the Subject-Verb-Object order for words. So the thing doing the action comes first, followed by the action being taken, and finally the recipient of the action. In the sentence the boy caught the ball, boy is the subject, caught is the verb, and ball is the object.

In other languages, this can be shifted around. Luckily, Spanish uses the same word order as English: El niño aggaró el balón. Now, hopefully, if you’re paying attention, I don’t even need to translate that sentence for you. You’re learning already! (Hint: look at the previous paragraph)

I’ll go over the basics and keep it quick:

• Sentences follow the same general structure as English.
• Nouns are in the same places in a sentence and don’t change a whole lot.
• Pronouns move around a lot more in sentences than in English.
• Adjectives generally come after nouns rather than before.
• Adverbs usually come after whatever they modify (but can come before), as close as possible to it.
• Verbs appear in the same places as in English.

Another thing that doesn’t really go in any other category: questions will have a ¿ at the beginning and ? at the end. Exclamations have ¡ at the beginning and ! at the end.

Nouns

I’m sure you know what nouns are, but as a quick reminder, they are any word describing a person, place, thing, or idea. Nouns in Spanish are luckily pretty simple. Here’s what you should know:

• Nouns are divided into feminine and masculine. Masculine nouns end in -o, -l, or -r. Feminine nouns end in -a, -d, -ción, sión, -umbre, and -z.
  • In practice, this doesn’t change much of the function of nouns, but looking for these endings (and their location) can help you identify nouns.
  • Like most things with language, there are exceptions to this rule, but they aren’t extremely common.
• Like English, nouns ending in -s are plural. This can happen in a few ways, but if you recognize the base form and see an s, it’s plural.
  • Watch out for the -z to -ces ending in plurals though. This can make it harder to find the base form. For example, lápiz would become lápices.
  • Some singular nouns do end in -s. This is where the next part comes in.
• Before nouns, you will often see el, la, los, or las. These are articles, like the in English. With Spanish, these change if a noun is masculine or feminine, as well as plural. If these articles are present, it can help you to identify not only a noun, but also the form of it.

Pronouns

Grammatically, pronouns serve to replace a longer noun. This allows for efficiency in speaking and writing since most pronouns are shorter than the word they replace.

Pronouns are a bit more complicated in Spanish than in English. Mainly, there are a lot more forms of them that have different functions. Here’s the basics that you should know:

• Spanish has the same forms for subject pronouns (those mostly appearing before the verb) as English (English words listed first):
  • I = yo
  • you = tú
  • you (plural) = vosotros
    • This isn’t used in most places, and is replaced with ustedes below
  • we = nosotros
  • he = él
  • she = ella
  • they = ellos/ellas
  • In addition, there are a few extra pronouns used in more formal situations:
    • Formal you = usted
    • Formal you (plural) = ustedes
• The object pronouns (mostly used after the verb) are similar (English words listed first):
  • me = me
  • us = nos
  • you = te
  • you (plural) = os
  • him/her = lo/la
  • them = los/las
• Most pronouns follow a similar structure to these in Spanish, and you shouldn’t need a whole lot to get around. I wouldn’t worry about memorizing these too much, as long as you have a way to reference them.
• Words like this, that, and these are also pronouns. Here’s how they work in Spanish:
  • Este, esta, estos, and estas are similar to saying this one or these ones in English
  • Ese, esa, esos, and esas are like saying that one or those ones in English.
    • Look for the ones without Ts to help differentiate.
  • Aquel, aquella, aquellos, and aquellas are a little different. They imply more of a distance than anything we would describe in English. Think of it as saying that one over there.

There’s a lot more Spanish pronouns than what I’ve listed here. If anyone is interested to know more I can always add on to this, but for now this should help.

Adjectives

Adjectives include color, texture, quality, and anything else you might use to describe a noun. They function slightly differently in Spanish, so here’s what you should know.

• Like I said above, adjectives come after the noun they modify in Spanish rather than before.
  • Where English says brown dog, Spanish says perro marrón (dog brown).
  • This does make more sense if you think about it. You hear or read the description first.
  • QUICK EXCEPTION: sometimes an adjective will appear, slightly modified, in front of a noun. This usually changes the meaning.
    • For example, grande means large. If I said dragón grande, it means big dragon. If I changed this to grán dragón, it means great dragon.
• Adjectives change with nouns they modify. If a noun is plural, the adjective becomes plural. Most adjectives will share the -o or -a endings unless they have a different letter at the end, like grande or marrón.
  • Gato pequeño and gata pequeña mean the same thing. Gatas pequeñas and gatos pequeños, while being a plural form of the other example, mean the same thing. In this case, the only difference is a male or female cat.

Verbs

Oh boy. Here’s the big one. Spanish verbs are complicated. English verbs are complicated too, but they’re complicated in different ways. Learning these verb forms can be hard for English speakers. I know from experience, and still struggle with some of these forms. I’ll do my best to keep it simple. After all, my goal here isn’t to teach you the language, but to help you travel.

The main thing I’ll focus on here is the usage of verbs. I’ll also mention the endings used for different usages/meanings in verbs so that you can have an easier time identifying the core word to look it up.

Like in English, the most common forms of verbs you’ll encounter will be present and past tense. The – here won’t be part of the actual word, it’s just a way of showing what the ending looks like.

• To preface all of this, you should know about the basic form of all verbs. This ends in -er, -ir, or -ar. Comer, hablar, dormir, are all examples of this but every verb has one.
• Present tense refers to actions happening right now.
  • Look out for -o, -es, -as, -e, -a, -amos*, -emos, -imos*, -an, -en. This is a good indicator of present tense
    • * -amos, and -imos can also appear in past tense verbs, so you might need extra context here.
  • Be aware as well that certain verbs change parts of their core word with these different forms. This might complicate your translation, but these words are not all extremely common. If you’re using SpanishDict like I recommend below, then you can check for this.
• Past tense is things happening in the past. There are two different ways to express this in Spanish depending on how they happen.
  • One of these past tense forms refers to things happening in a specific period of time.
    • Look out for -é, -aste, -ó, -amos*, -aron, -í, -iste -ió, -imos, ieron. These indicate verbs in this form.
      • Again, -amos and -imos can be both past tense and present tense, so try to find more context like hoy which means today or ayer which means yesterday.
  • The other past tense form often refers to background information (like when telling a story), or some event that was going on in the past or is still currently going on. I know, it’s a little confusing for English speakers, but it’s actually easier to differentiate these contexts in Spanish since they’re separate forms.
    • Look for abas: -aba, -abas, -ábamos, -abais, -aban. Also, -aron, -í, -iste, ió, -imos, -isteis, -ieron.
• If you see voy, vas, va, vamos, vais, or van + a before a verb, you’re dealing with a future verb. Think of it like I will, we will, you will, etc.

While there are many other Spanish verb forms that you might encounter, you shouldn’t need more than these basics to find your way around easily. If there’s reason for me to get into the others, let me know. I can always add more!

Adverbs

Adverbs, words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, are in a similar boat to adjectives in Spanish. They come after the thing they modify but can sometimes come before, and appear as close as possible to the word they modify. Here’s what to know:

• Many adverbs are formed from adjectives, like in English. You could say someone is quick, or you could say they moved quickly.
  • Just like how -ly changes an adjective into an adverb, -mente does the same in Spanish. So to use the above example, quick and quickly, Spanish would change rapida to rapidamente.
• Adverbs cover a wide range of words:
  • Time words like ahora (now) or temprano (late)
  • Manner, like bien (well) or mal (poorly)
  • Quantity, like medio (half) or casi (almost)
  • Place, like aquí (here), lejos (far), afuera (outside), cerca (close), debajo (underneath), atras (behind)
    • These would be especially useful to know for travel when getting directions
    • These function similarly to prepositions below, but describe words instead of introducing them.

Spanish Pronunciation

Pronunciation can vary a lot between countries and regions based on accents and dialects. For general pronunciation, I would look to Study Spanish’s website. There, you’ll find full audio recordings and explanations of every letter and letter combination you might encounter. Listening to audio will give you a better idea of the sounds than I would by approximating with other examples. Also, if I did approximate with text examples, then those could be incorrect if your accent or pronunciation of the example is different from mine.

An important thing to note is that Spanish pronunciation is much more consistent than English, so you can expect each letter to always make the same sound.

Helpful Resources

• One thing you’ll definitely need in another country is a dictionary. I’m a big fan of SpanishDict, who also has a mobile app that works offline.
• I mentioned it already, but for pronunciation, look into Study Spanish’s website.
• If your intended destination is Belize, this article I wrote delves into all the languages spoken in Belize. I talk about some of the main differences with Belizean Spanish to be aware of.
• As far as travel phrases to know, Rosetta Stone has a very comprehensive list.
  • I will add to this that while no is the same as English no, it’s used for a lot more things. Any kind of negative response or action, such as I didn’t do that, or Don’t kick the ball will use the word no as well.

Review

To close this out, I’ll go over the most important things once again:

• Spanish sentences are ordered the same way as English, but adjectives and adverbs come after the thing they modify instead of before.
• Verbs have a lot of endings you need to be aware of to identify them.
  • Verbs have two past tense forms
• Adjectives change with the noun they modify, both for gender and if they’re plural.
• Nouns have two forms based on gender, but can also be plural.
• Spanish has many of the same pronouns as English but adds more.
• Adverbs are formed in the same way as English, with a special ending.
• Prepositions are important to know for directions, as are adverbs of location and time.

That should be it! If you need clarification, more detail, or have any other questions, let me know!

My source for all of this information comes from many years of classes, but my main reference was the Manual de Gramática: Grammar Reference for Students of Spanish, 6th Edition by Eleanor Dozier and Zulma Iguina.