Lesson 1: Spanish Pronunciation & Basic Translation

hey everybody Qroo Paul here welcome  to the first lesson of my course   cero to conversational this course was designed  specifically for english-speaking adults who   speak little or no spanish or those who have  tried and failed to learn spanish in the past   via more traditional courses even if you're  an absolute beginner to spanish i promise you   that by the end of this lesson you're going to be  translating sentences on your own i know that's a   big promise but you're going to see in this lesson  the very first lesson i'm going to be giving you   an overview of the spanish language teaching you  a couple of cool cognate tricks to convert your   english vocabulary into spanish without having to  rely on memorization and most importantly teaching   you spanish pronunciation after all the goal of  the entire course is to make you conversational in   spanish and that isn't going to happen if you're  just watching these videos silently to get the   most out of this video lesson you're going to have  to be pronouncing these things these sentences   out loud so i suggest that you tell the people  in your house up front that you're going to be   doing this so they don't keep popping their heads  in and asking did you say something and what are   you even doing in here as an english speaker you  already have a big head start on learning spanish   because the two languages share some common  roots especially when it comes to vocabulary   take a look at these english words animal legal  social criminal digital final formal individual   normal hospital and judicial as you can see these  words all share a common trait they all end with a   l now i'm going to do a quick little trick  here and turn them all into spanish words   ready there you go no there wasn't a glitch there  they just didn't change all of these words are   spanish words you just may not have recognized  them because well they're pronounced differently   these are known as cognates which are words in two  languages that share similar roots now sometimes   these words are going to be exactly the same as  they are here and sometimes they're just going   to be very similar fortunately for you english and  spanish share a lot of vocabulary and the majority   of that vocabulary comes from either latin or  greek so this is going to allow you to gain   about a thousand word vocabulary in spanish just  from the english you already know so the cognate   technique i just showed you is known as the al2al  cognate trick meaning that many words but not all   words in english that end in a al will be the same  in spanish as i just mentioned although these look   exactly the same they do not sound the same this  is how they would sound in spanish animal legal   social criminal digital final formal individual  normal hospital judicial sounds very different   doesn't it so you're going to have to learn  spanish pronunciation well compared to english   spanish pronunciation is much easier to learn as  a second language because spanish is a phonetic   language meaning if you can see it you can say it  it follows very clear pronunciation rules the same   cannot be said about english like think of herd  and beard why are they not pronounced the same or   one and bone and then we even have words that have  different pronunciations and are written exactly   the same like live and live that doesn't make  any sense refuse refuse i mean there just seems   to be no rhyme or reason to english the key to  pronouncing spanish correctly is to really focus   on the sound of the vowels fortunately this is  going to be super easy because there are only   five vowel sounds in spanish now english has  12 vowel sounds in case you were wondering   but spanish only has five here they are say them  along with me a sounds like ah e sounds like   a i sounds like e a real hard e o sounds like  o and you sounds like okay let's take a look   at that word list again those words ending  in al because i want you to practice your   pronunciation remember you're not going to become  conversational or get good in spanish if you're   just watching these videos silently so we're going  to go through each one i really want you to focus   on the vowel sounds okay i'm going to say it  twice i'm going to pause so you can say it twice legal social social criminal criminal digital digital final finale formal formal individual individual if you had some difficulty pronouncing those don't  worry it's going to take some practice now i want   to talk about a little bit more about spanish  pronunciation i'm going to use these words so   let's talk about the letter c c normally has a  hard c sound like a k except before the letters   e or i in that case it'll have an s sound take a  look at this criminal hard k right criminal social   the c has an s sound because it is before an i  or an e it's an i in this case let's talk about   g g normally in spanish has a hard g sound or a  but it will have an h sound like an h in english   before an e or an i here are two examples legal  legal that's a hard g and then we have dijital   digital which is more like the english h a v in  spanish has kind of a soft b sound like boy or ben   individual individual and one letter  in spanish has absolutely no sound and   that is the h you may have noticed  that i didn't say hospital i said   a j in spanish sounds like an h in english and  we had an example of that in judicial judicial   okay that a l to a l cognate trick is pretty cool  right but it isn't the most useful cognate trick   in my humble opinion i'm going to teach you the  big one so you can practice it as we continue   to work through your spanish pronunciation all  right here it is the tion to cion cognate trick   so to use this one we're going to take words  in english that end in tion now the first thing   we're going to do is we're going to look at  these words and we're going to change the t   at the end to a c and then put an accent over the  last o that accent is going to tell us to put the   emphasis on that letter when we pronounce the word  well there you go these are spanish words now it's   that easy we're going to go through these  and just like i did before i'm going to say   each one twice pause so you have an opportunity  to say the word ready creation creation documentation documentation information information verification verification you can slow these down at first till  you get better you can say creation now changing your english into the spanish using  this cognate trick was pretty easy right now as   with most cognate tricks it doesn't work on all  words for example the word translation in english   is not translation in spanish it's traduxion  nevertheless this cognate trick works often enough   that you can really feel confident making educated  guesses trying to use it and working into your   spanish in those cases where you're wrong what  generally happens is the person you're talking to   it's close enough they realize what you're trying  to say and they correct you so let's see if you   can do a few of these cognate tricks on your own  i want you to convert these four english words   into spanish decoration elevation continuation  confirmation now you can pause the video   at any point if you want to work on something a  little bit longer i encourage you to write these   out on a piece of paper it just helps to reinforce  that you know you're seeing it you're writing it   and you're going to be saying it all right are you  ready if you're not ready you may want to pause   otherwise we're going to move on all right  what do we end up with decoration we change   the t to c we put an accent over the last o and  we get decoration decoration elevation we change   the t to c put an accent over the o elevation  are you saying these along with me because you   should be saying them along with me continuation  change the t to c accent over the o continuation   that can be a little trickier that one because  you have a lot of vowels in there and you're   going to be pronouncing all of the vowels and  conformation t to c accent over the o confirmation   all right now let's cover some of the cognate  tricks that are going to change a little in the   root so if we have an english word beginning with  an s followed by a consonant then it's going to be   the s is going to turn into es in the stem here's  an example speculation see we have an s followed   by a consonant that's the p so the spanish  is going to be especially especially station   same thing we're going to be adding an e on the  front everything else is going to go the same   way we change the t to c we put an accent over it  estacion estacion an estacion in spanish can mean   station or it can mean season like the seasons  you know fall spring summer stuff like that   don't worry if you can't remember some of these  nuances with the cognate trick the first time you   watch this video you can refer back to this video  whenever you feel the need and for some folks you   may want to watch it several times to really drive  these things home all right here's another one   double letters in english that don't change the  sound of the word will often go to a single letter   in spanish they just don't like wasted letters  okay so take a look at this one in english   recommendation look we have those two m's together  in the middle they're not changing the sound it   just still has an m sound it doesn't even have  a long m sound we're not saying recommendation   i don't know why we have two letters  in english anyways in spanish we won't   it'll change to one and repeat after me i'm going  to say it twice recommendation recommendation communication two m's stuck together i don't know  why we're going to drop one of them comunicacion   comunicacion your turn i'm guessing you said  it right i can't hear you here's another one   illumination illumination now a double l in  spanish will have a y sound so if we kept the two   l's it wouldn't sound like illumination anymore  it would sound like illumination so it's going   to drop to a single l illumination illumination  it's going to take you some practice to get this   cognate trick down and that's not really the point  of this video the point is so you can work on your   spanish pronunciation and you can also see that  spanish is not going to be as difficult for you to   learn as you may have thought it was you can use  your english to give you a huge boost and not just   in vocabulary it's also going to help when we get  into some of the grammar you'll see what i mean as   we go through the course all right let's get back  to our double letters or two of the same letters   together in english sometimes we're going to  keep that in spanish if they each have their own   individual sound meaning it's important for the  pronunciation of the word a good example of this   is cooperation even in english we're saying go  operation we're pronouncing each one of those o's   since it sounded out like that it's going to stay  the same in the root in the spanish cooperation now if there are two r's together in a word they  tend to stay together even though they're not   pronounced separately they're actually pronounced  like uh some people say it's like a trill like a   and this is going to be one of the most difficult  sounds for most english speakers to make and it's   just going to take some practice so we have  narration and we make that into spanish again   t to c accent over the o those  two r's are going to stay together   so we're still going to focus on our vowels right  i'm going to say it twice and then you can try that rolling r is going to give a lot of people  trouble if you're not getting it right now or it's   sounding like a hacion which some people pronounce  it that way you're just going to have to work on   it some people refer to it as like a machine gun  sound like little kids make when they're like just take your time with that you're going to get  it you're going to get it so with the tio and cio   and cognate trick you may see some other spelling  changes in the root of the word that don't always   make as much sense here are some of the common  ones you just have to kind of learn them as   they come up demonstration actually becomes  demonstration demonstration and immigration   with the double m's which normally you expect  to drop one they picked up an n in migration   inmigration and humiliation actually picked up a  double l you may remember i just mentioned that a   double l is going to have a y sound so humiliation  is going to turn into mumiacion it's like a y   sound in there here's another spelling change  you're going to see not just here but occasionally   with other cognates and that is if you have  a th in english it often turns into just a t   so authorization would turn into  we're going to drop that th to a t you try to say it good good so how's your pronunciation coming along  don't worry if it's sounding like auturisan it's   it's really going to take some time okay now i  want to talk about the n with a squiggly over it   known as the enye spanish has a regular n with no  squiggly but it also has this end with a squiggly   and it's going to be pronounced like the first n  in onion like that sound a good example of this   is the spanish word manana like manana all right  we're not done playing with our cognate trick just   yet but i need to touch on the gender of nouns  before we proceed right because i'm giving you   an overview of the spanish language so gender of  nouns in spanish every noun in spanish is assigned   a gender it's either masculine or feminine even  inanimate objects like a chair or a car have   gender well with the exception of living beings  the gender assignment seems to be quite random   when it comes to inanimate objects and you're  just going to have to learn the gender as you   learn each new spanish word so with masculine  nouns masculine nouns often end with an o   but not always here's a few examples chico  boy hombre man remember h is silent parque   park now i want to point out that q u in there  in parque that's going to have like a k sound   parque parque and edificio building these  are all masculine nouns with feminine nouns   in spanish they often end with the letter a but  not always here's some examples chica means girl   mujer means woman casa house sia chair  see the double else has a y sound in english our nouns do not have any gender and  we use definite articles and indefinite articles   before them and don't let the english grammatical  terms freak you out because that's where adult   learners are like i don't even know what he  means by definite article indefinite article   definite article is the the word the indefinite  article is like a or an depending on it well in   english it's pretty easy because we don't have  a lot of options but in spanish the definite and   indefinite articles have to agree in number and  gender with the noun so let's look at masculine   nouns first the word the for singular is el so  el chico the boy if i want to say a boy i use to make nouns plural if they end with a vowel  we can just add an s so it could be chicos   because that's a vowel we just add an s and the  the part has to change because it's always going   to agree in number and gender this is something  that's going to be different from english and   might give you some trouble so it becomes los  los chicos and there's one more unos chicos   and that would mean like some boys here's  a spanish word that does not end in a vowel see it as an accent over the first a so that's  going to show us to put the emphasis there   it means tree so if i wanted to  make it the tree el arbun a tree the trees to make it plural if it doesn't end  in a vowel we have to add an es los arboles   los arboles and some trees would be unos arboles  unos arboles okay that's how masculine nouns work   and we're going to move on to  feminine nouns la is the una for a for the plural and unas for some so we do the same  drill we just did with masculine nouns we're going   to say for example we have chica we're going to  say the girl a girl the girls some girls ready la   chica the girl una chica agro las chicas the  girls unas chicas some girls mujer which means   woman again this is gonna end with a consonant so  we can't just throw an s on we have to put an e s   right remember that when we get to that part la  mojer the woman una mujer a woman las mujeres   the women unas mujeres some women and the last  one sia remember l's together two l's mean a y   sia la silla the chair una sia a chair la silas  the chairs una some chairs if that seemed a little   difficult at first don't be discouraged you're  going to be working with nouns every single day   as you work through this course so you're  going to learn it just through repetition   in this first lesson this is really just an  introduction for those folks who are just super   new to spanish so i just wanted to give you that  little breakdown all right now let's get back to   our tion cio and cognate trick now here's the  cool thing all of the nouns that we've made   are all going to be feminine isn't that great it's  great because you don't have to try to memorize is   that one masculine feminine they're all feminine  so let's take an english word decoration let's   make it into spanish do you remember how to  do it change the t to c put an accent over   the o decoration decoration now i want you to say  the decoration a decoration the decorations and   some decorations how are we going to do that here  we go the decoration la decoration now you say a decoration the decorations las decoraziones you may have  noticed the accent mark disappeared in the   plural that's not a typo it does but you may  have noticed that you still managed to put the   emphasis in the correct place even without the  accent mark telling you right like that's why   spanish didn't need to add it so go ahead and  say that las decoraziones and some decorations your turn all right now it's time for  you to do a little bit of translation   i want you to translate the following the  information the confirmation the implementation   the motivation and the certifications be careful  with that last one it's in the plural i honestly   don't think you need too much time for this so  we're just going to jump into it i'm going to say   the answer once and i'm going to pause during  that pause i want you to repeat the answer so   you can work on your spanish pronunciation  all right let's get started la informacion motivation did you remember to put loss on that last one  remember the the in spanish is going to agree   in number and gender with the noun now as you  can see this is a pretty useful cognate trick   but a lot of people ask me paul why do  you like this particular cognate trick   so much and the reason is is that i can use  this cognate trick to make verbs yes verbs and   few folks that haven't been in school in a while  those are action words we're going to need some   action words to start making our first sentences  or your first sentences actually so i'm going   to show you how to make these verbs first of all  let's take the spanish words that we just created   and we're going to drop those definite articles  that means the la and las we don't need them   also we're going to want them to all be in the  singular which is not a problem for most of them   but that one at the end certifications is going to  become certification all right now this is super   important if the noun we created using the tion  cion cognate trick ends in asion acion then we   can make it a verb so take a look at our words on  the screen coincidentally or not so coincidentally   they all end in asion which means we can make them  a verb the way we do this is we drop the sion from   the end and we add the letter r so that's it these  are verbs now so we end up with informar to inform   confirmar to confirm implementar to implement  motivar to motivate and certificate to certify   that's not so hard is it now you're going to  be able to do this with a lot of your tion   words and convert them into verbs but not all  of them if the cio n word that we've created in   spanish using our cognate trick does not end  in acion then you cannot make it a verb okay   that's just how it goes so here are some examples  satisfaction satisfaction doesn't end in asean see   there's two c's in there we cannot make this a  verb fiction fiction same problem axion action   same problem so we're just going to have to stick  with using these as nouns little more overview of   spanish there are actually three types of verbs in  spanish there are those that end in ar er and ir   every verb that we create with this little cognate  trick is an ar verb those little endings are going   to be important when we get into conjugations  more all right so here are examples of an er and   ir verbs gomer which means to e that's ending  with er and bibir to live is ending with ir   those are just examples i don't expect you  to learn those right now now it's your turn   to actually do some of these on your own and  i'm only going to be giving you the english   verb like for example to participate because  i want you to get in the habit of thinking   of tion words so if i was like hey you know how to  say to participate in spanish you might be like no   i've never heard the word but if you can think  of a tion word you're like well maybe i do   participation i can change that to participacion  i know it ends in asion so i drop the cion and   add an r participate to participate i guess  i do know it so this exercise is going to get   you in that habit we're going to go through 15 of  these our first one is to educate so what i want   you to do is stop the video as necessary and it  helps to write these out and i want you to first   think of the tion right which will be education  and change it into spanish and then change it   into the verb to educate so when i give you the  answers i'm just going to be giving you the noun   and the verb and of course after i say them i  would like you to say them out loud so you can   work on your pronunciation because that's our  goal right we want to make you conversational   in spanish all right go ahead and take a  stab at that first one again pause the video   as necessary because i'm going to go through  these relatively quickly education education to observe [Music] to legalize legalization to facilitate facilitation facilitar to create creation [Music] to document documentation documentary to  contemplate contemplation [Music] to imitate imitation to examine examination to converse conversation [Music] to participate to transform transformation did you get those right that's a lot of  translation there but you know you've learned a   lot today but how much actual memorization's been  involved right not a lot so i'm going to be asking   you now to learn two new words the first one is  and that means to want that's in the infinitive   right the unconjugated form so the other word i  actually want to teach you is just a conjugation   from query now when you take a traditional  spanish course they generally give you long   lists of conjugations you're going to learn how to  say like i want she wants you want what you want   we're not going to do any of that right now we're  only going to learn one and that's i want and the   reason we're doing i is because we're going to  make you conversational and the person who's in   every conversation you have is yourself so you're  going to be saying i a lot so repeat after me yo yo now there's a unique thing about spanish that um  a lot of times they're actually going to drop that   subject that pronoun the eye will disappear and  they'll just use the verb it doesn't change how we   translate it in spanish for example you may just  see quiero with no yo but we'd still translate it   as i want so the tendency in spanish is actually  to drop the subject or that pronoun and just keep   the verb if the conjugation of the verb makes  it clear who we're talking about or the context   of the conversation does so when it comes to yo  quiero it's very clear from the verb conjugation   that we're talking about i so yo normally does  not appear with it and you're just going to say   quiero quiero now the queue sounds like a k and  i want you to pronounce every single vowel quiero all right just think i want so big into  constructions i want you to like learn   little constructions because they're  easier as an english speaker to keep   in your head straight and the one we're going to  be using today is quiero plus infinitive remember   the infinitive is the unconjugated verb that means  i want to do something okay quiero plus infinitive   here's an example i want to participate this  uses one of your cognate tricks right you just   you just conjugate it to participate all we  do is quiero and then we plug in infinitives   when we have a series of verbs we're only  conjugating the very first one i think of it as   the locomotive on a train pulling these other cars  and i can just plug in other verbs without having   to conjugate them this is a way that we can speak  spanish faster down the road so quiero participar   i want to participate piece of cake right i'm  actually so confident you can use this formula   with your cognate trick to successfully translate  sentences that we are going to jump right into the   exercise and you even the absolute beginners  are going to translate complete sentences   in spanish in your very first lesson here's  number one i want to memorize the information   i want to memorize the information now i  encourage you to actually stop the video   at this point and to write this down otherwise the  answer is going to come too quickly for you just   break it down like i showed you use the formula  you ready i want to memorize the information did you get that one so you had the quiero and   where did you get memorized from you had to  think of memorization right and then you had   to make it into the verb that's where that  came from now we're back to the information   that's just a noun using your cognate trick  the the is la right because informacion is   a feminine noun not too bad right here's number  two i want to participate i want to participate should have gotten that one because it  was actually an example i just gave you   i want to examine the documentation  i want to examine the documentation quiero examinar la documentacion quiero you should be practicing your pronunciation  as we go through these all right number four   i want to cancel the reservation  i want to cancel the reservation just a quick note about the translation of  reservation another common translation is   not a cognate trick and it is reserva and in  some countries uh you won't hear reservacion   used as much in mexico we do say reservation for  like when i'm making reservations for restaurants   things like that so feel comfortable using it  and if you happen to be in a spanish-speaking   country where you don't hear that as much you may  not be able to rely on that particular cognate   trick as much and you'll just have to plug in  reserva okay all right let's get back to these   i want to organize the information  i want to organize the information i want to celebrate i want to celebrate i want to certify the information  i want to certify the information [Music] i want to cooperate i want to cooperate i want to collaborate i want to collaborate i want to confirm the description  i want to confirm the description   quiero confirmar description i want to present the information  i want to present the information presented i want to prepare the documentation i want  to prepare the documentation quiero preparar   documentacion quiero preparar i want to verify the information i want  to verify the information quiero verificar   la informacion quiero verificar la i  want to deliberate i want to deliberate i want to decorate i want to decorate so how did you do on those if you're absolutely  new at spanish quite possibly those were the very   first spanish sentences you ever translated on  your own and you did it using your english and the   simple formula there's one thing i want to point  out before you move on in all of those examples i   was talking about what i want to do but what if i  don't want to do it how would i make it negative   well the only thing you have to do is put  the word no before quiero so if you say i   don't want to speculate again that's one of our  cognate tricks i could say no quiero especular   now that little es was added remember because we  had an s with a consonant so if i said something   like i don't want to decorate the house i  would just say no quiero de corrar la casa i   don't want to decorate the house it's really  that easy well that's the end of the lesson   i hope you enjoyed it and i hope you stick with  the course um i'll be adding new lessons to this   course periodically so be sure to subscribe  to the channel and hit that little bell so   you'll get a notification whenever i publish  something new feel free to leave me some   feedback or questions in the comments section  i get to them as i get time and until next time

Channel: Spanish With Qroo Paul

Views: 456,794

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Id: 8Ozf-mSpMFk

Length: 36min 31sec (2191 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 19 2022