Spanish is the fourth most-spoken language in the world. Originating in Spain, and spoken by most residents there, it is also spoken in Mexico and all of Central and South America except Brazil, Guyana and Surinam. Spanish is also spoken in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean islands.
Grammar
Spanish nouns have genders. Most words applied to persons have natural gender: masculine like hombre ("male person") or feminine, like mujer ("female person"). The gender of some animals, things, and some words applied to persons doesn't follow any rule: they have grammatical gender. Casa (house), rana (frog), and visita (visitor) are of the feminine gender. Árbol (tree), sapo (toad) and genio (genius) are of the masculine gender. Invitado, invitada (guest) and mono, mona (monkey) have natural gender. Fortunately, the gender of a noun is usually (but not always) indicated by the last letter of the word; -o indicates masculine nouns, and -a indicates feminine nouns.
Adjectives also have gender and number. Like nouns, -o usually indicates the masculine form of the adjective, and -a indicates the feminine form. Adding an -s at the end of an adjective or noun makes it plural. Adjectives need to match the noun they describe in both gender and number. For example, borracho "drunk", when modifying las mujeres ("the women"), makes las mujeres borrachas.
In this guide, where genders of nouns or adjectives comes up, we use the form "o/a" to differentiate. It should be clear from context when to use the feminine and when to use the masculine form.
Spanish spelling has the pleasant characteristic of being more or less phonetic. This means that if you know how to pronounce the letters of a word, it's relatively easy to sound out the word itself.
Besides having a very small number of vowel sounds and a high predictablity of exactly what sound is represented by each letter, Spanish has a very clear set of rules about where a stress normally falls, and exceptions are noted with an "acute accent mark" ("´") over the vowel of the stressed syllable. Normally, words that end in a vowel or in "n" or "s" have the stress on the next-to-last syllable; all other words without an explicit accent mark are stressed on the final syllable. There are no "secondary stresses" within words.
like the first component of the diphthong 'ay' in "day" (este). Since Spanish also has a diphthong 'ay', as in rey (see "ei" below) you may consider to pronounce Spanish 'e' like the 'e' in "get".
i
like 'ee' in "see" or "deed".
o
like the first component of the diphthong 'ow' in "low". The vowel in "caught" will be equally understood, unless you pronounce it like "cot". Anyway, the full diphthong "ow" does not occur in Spanish, so you don't have to worry about pronouncing clipped enough.
when followed by 'e' or 'i', like 'c' in "cell" (Latin America) or 'th' in "thin" (Spain): cine; otherwise like 'k' in "kid": calle, doctor
ch
like 'ch' in "touch": muchacho
d
like 'd' in "dog": dedo
f
like 'f' in "fine": faro
g
when followed by 'e' or 'i', like 'ch' in "loch" (general = hai-nai-RAHL), otherwise like "g" in "go" (gato). In the clusters "gue" and "gui", the "u" is silent (guitarra), unless it bears a diaeresis, as in "güe" and "güi" (pedigüeño).
gu, gü
like 'Gu' in McGuire or 'w' in "wire" (agua, agüita)
h
silent: hora
j
like 'ch' in "loch": jabón
k
like 'c' in "cat": kilo
l
like 'l' in "love": lápiz
ll
like 'y' in "yield" (Latin America) or the 'ly' sound in "million" (Spain): lluvia
m
like 'm' in "mother": mano
n
like 'n' in "nice", and like 'n' in "anchor": noche, ancla
ñ
like 'ny' in "canyon": cañón, piñata
p
like 'p' in "pig": perro
q
like 'q' in "quiche" (always with a silent "u"): queso, pronounced KAY-so.
r, rr
Spanish has two "r" sounds which are very different form their counterparts in most languages. However, if you use your native pronunciation it's unlikely that people understand cerro (hill) when youn meant cero (zero).
single flap r (ere): Always written "r", and never occurs at the beginning of the word, it sounds like American relaxed pronunciation of "butter": cero, brazo.
rolled r (erre)
Written "r" at the beginning of the word, or after "l", "n", or "s" (ropa, enredo). Written "rr" between vowels (cerro). It's a multiply vibrating sound.
s
like 'ss' in "hiss": sopa
t
like 't' in "top": tapa
v
like 'b' in "bed": vaca, pronounced BAH-kah
w
like 'w' in "weight" in English words, whisky (pronounced WEESS-kee). Like 'b' in "bed" in Germanic words.
x
like 'x' in "sex" (sexo). Like 'ss' in "hiss" at beginning of a word (xilófono). Like 'ch' in "loch" in the words México, mexicano, Oaxaca, and oaxaqueño.
y
like 'y' in "yes": payaso. Like 'y' in "boy": hoy.
z
like 's' in "supper" (Latin America), like 'th' in "thin" (Spain): zorro. See c above.
When speaking, times are given in AM/PM form (but saying de la mañana (morning), de la tarde (afternoon), de la noche (evening/night) or de la madrugada (late night) to distinguish between AM and PM. On the other hand, in most countries times are rendered in 24-hour format, with a colon separating hours and minutes:
9 o'clock AM
nueve de la mañana (spoken: noo-WEH-vay day la mahn-YAH-nah), 9:00 (written)
12:30 PM
doce y media de la mañana (spoken: DOH-say ee MAY-dee-yah day la mahn-YAH-nah), 12:30 (written)
1 o'clock PM
una de la tarde (spoken: OOH-nah day lah TAHR-day), 13:00 (written)
10 o'clock PM
diez de la noche (spoken: dee-AYSS day la NOH-chay), 22:00 (written)
2 o'clock AM
dos de la madrugada or dos de la mañana (spoken: DOHSS day la mah-drooh-GAH-dah or DOHSS day la mahn-YAH-nah), 2:00 (written)
Dates are given in day-month-year form. All spoken and written, long and short forms follow this pattern:
October 3rd, 2003
3 de octubre del 2003
May 21st, 1997
21 de mayo de 1997
Day-month constructions (4 de julio, for example) are not usually abbreviated. In the rare cases than an abbreviation is used, the number of the month is not used, but its three initial letters are. Usual examples are:
23-Feb
23 de febrero, date of a failed coup d'êtat in Spain (1981)
11-Sep
11 de septiembre, date of the attack to the Twin Towers (2001) (and of the Chilean coup in 1973).
agua con gas (if you say agua, is without gas); Agua mineral is bottled water with gas, unless you ask for agua mineral sin gas.
beer
cerveza
red/white wine
vino tinto/blanco
May I have some _____?
¿Me puede dar un poco de _____?
salt
sal
black pepper
pimienta
butter
mantequilla , manteca (in Argentina)
Excuse me, waiter? (getting attention of server'): ¡camarero!, ¡mesero! (preferred)
I'm finished.
He acabado, terminé (The first phrase can refer to the finishing of a completely unrelated physiological activity)
It was delicious.
Estaba delicioso.
Please clear the plates.
Puede llevarse los platos.
The check, please.
La cuenta, por favor.
Note that in Chile you must ask for the check. A gringo was known to have waited until 2 in the morning because he was too shy to ask :-)
===Bars===
Do you serve alcohol?
¿Hay alcohol?
Is there table service?
¿Hay servicio a la mesa?
A beer/two beers, please.
Una cerveza/dos cervezas, por favor.
A glass of red/white wine.
Un vaso de vino tinto/blanco.
A pint (of beer)
Una jarra de cerveza (normally it will be half a liter, not really a pint, but the size is similar); In Chile un schop might be anywhere from 300cc to one liter.
A glass of draft beer
Un schop (oon SHOHP) (Only in Chile)
_____ (hard liquor) and _____ (mixer).
_____ con _____. In Spain, Cubata is Coke with whiskey
A bottle.
Una botella.
whiskey
whisky (WEESS-key)
vodka
vodka
rum
ron
water
agua
tonic water
(agua) tónica
orange juice
zumo/jugo de naranja
Coke (soda)
Coca-Cola
Do you have any bar snacks?
¿Tiene algo para picar? (In Spain they will give you tapas, depends a lot from the bar.)
GENIAL!