Spanish is an amazing language spoken in many American countries and Europe, it´s a language you must learn.
But, some people think it is not that easy, because it includes a variety of conjugations and terms. But is Spanish grammar difficult?
Spanish Grammar and language origins
Spanish grammar has its origins related to other languages just like: Italian, Romanian, French, and Portuguese.
The Spanish language is called a Romance language originated in Vulgar or common Latin.
Spanish grammar was born on the Iberian Peninsula which is located on the southwest corner of Europe, Spain and Portugal are located there.
Vulgar Latin was mixed with the Arabic dialect spoken by the Moors, who conquered a lot of parts belonging to this region.
After centuries of evolution and a mix of dialects, the Spanish grammar and language became standardized around the 1200s.
Castilian is a Spanish dialect, which is very common nowadays but there is also the Andalusian dialect mainly and still spoken in some regions of southern Spain.
A little time later around the 16th century, Spain conquered a big part of the Americas.
With this conquest, Spanish language and grammar were brought to natives.
So, nowadays you find more than 20 countries where Spanish is the official language and a big percentage of Spanish speakers around the world.
Of course Spain, Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Spain, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.
Some Facts about Spanish…
- Of course as we mentioned it´s spoken in many countries.
- It has a special and unique letter in the alphabet, which is “ñ”
- Some words in Spanish may have more than 5 vowels
- The longest word in Spanish has 23 letters.
- The word “ojalá” is the most used in Spanish-speaking countries, it means “God willing” and it comes from Arabic.
Spanish grammar Possible Issues
Spanish is not the easiest language to learn from scratch and it includes some grammar specifications as well.
But before starting learning Spanish let´s identify some important issues or facts about it.
- Let´s start with the verb To Be, “Ser” and “estar”
As you might know in English there is one word for both verbs, and we call it to be.
Then, in Spanish, you will find more and this might be a constraint for Spanish learners because they have to identify the difference for every noun and pronoun.
- Gender Variations:
As you know you won´t find gender variations in English.
Thus, in Spanish, every word has the gender masculine or feminine, followed by its own article.
There is also a basic rule saying that words ending in –o, are considered male and words ending in -a are considered female.
But, at the same time, you will find some exceptions such as: “el agua”, the water, considered male or “la mano”, the hand, considered female).
- False friends or similar words:
Sometimes some words can be similar or written likewise with the same or related meaning such as virus, fatal, hospital, funeral, general, horror, control, chocolate, etc…
Of course, pronunciation may vary.
This fact might create a little confusion with other words that are totally different as with the word “jam”, which does not mean “jamón”. Jam in Spanish means marmalade.
- The subjunctive:
To learn the subjunctive verb forms is not a big deal, but the problem might be to apply them correctly.
For Spanish learners is difficult to know when to use the subjunctive verb forms. So that´s why we strongly recommend some guidance during your process of learning Spanish grammar.
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