I’ve been learning Spanish for a few years. A cousin got married in Mexico City, and I thought I could learn enough Spanish to get around and communicate, and I basically acheived my goal. I learned enough to communicate on the spot without memorizing stock phrases. I had a LOT of difficulty understanding spoken Spanish, but I was able to say things, and ask questions, and I could read a paperback with about 80% comprehension without translation.

I think a key to this (highly qualified) success was learning enough grammar and irregular verbs right away so that I could absorb the rest of the language, without constantly getting tripped up over tricky words.

Verbs

Two Dirty Dozens

There isn’t a quick way to learn a language outside of complete immersion, and a sense of urgency. Short of that, you can get strategic. I started by identifying some key verbs, about two dozen. I tried to strike a balance between essential verbs and irregular verbs. Luckily, there’s a lot of overlap there.

The first dozen focuses on the most essential and irregular verbs. The second dozen supplements this list with other essential verbs, and verbs that are have unusual conjugations, or stem changes. Barron’s has a list of 55 verbs that they consider canonical in the sense that they cover most of the irregularity in Spanish. I leaned on that list when building the second dozen.

1st Dozen 2nd Dozen
ir saber
ser pensar
estar salir
tener seguir
querer traer
hacer caer
poder sentir
poner morir
venir oír
ver oler
decir caber
dar conducir
haber deber

It turns out that when my daughter was learning to read, she came home with a list of “Trick Words”, or sight words, that she should know by sight without sounding out, and it was almost exactly this first dozen words, in different tenses, plus some pronouns, articles, and prepositions.

Tenses

Once I had some useful verbs, I started learning about tenses, and moods, and all of the different ways to use verbs. Here is a list of verb forms, tenses and verb phrases. You don’t need to focus on all of this at once, prioritize the present, preterite, and shortcut future. Next, look at the imperfect, command form, and present and past perfect tenses. Then fill in the gaps with the rest of the tenses.

Why are there two past tenses, the preterite and the imperfect? The preterite is the simple past, for completed, atomic actions, like, “I ran this morning”. The imperfect is for habitual past actions, like, “I used to run”. Thinking of the imperfect as saying “used to” is a great way to keep from over-thinking it.

It actually makes a lot of sense STARTING with the simple past tense, the preterite. Knowing how to say “I ate”, “I made coffee”, and in general reporting about completed past actions is arguably more useful than talking about what you are doing right now in the present.

The present is versatile; it can be used to talk about what you’re doing, what you usually do, and what you’re about to do. The preterite is important because it is more irregular than the other past tense, the imperfect. The imperfect is importand because it’s super easy, and a quick win. It only has three irregular verbs, but they’re all in the first dirty dozen above. The shortcut future is a way to talk about the future without learning the future tense yet. The command form has irregularities, which come up in books and movies, and it’s a good intro to the subjunctive. The present perfect and past perfect tenses are ways to say “I have done this”, or “I had done that”. Reading will go a lot faster when you don’t get stuck on había every time it comes up.

Tense Formula Example Translation
present participle -ando, -iendo hablando speaking
past participle -ado, -ido hablado spoken
present AR: -o, -as, -a, -amos, -an; ER/IR: -o, -es, -e, -(e/i)mos, -en hablo I speak
preterite AR: -é, -aste, -ó, -amos, -aron; ER/IR: -í, -iste, -ió, -imos, -ieron hablé I spoke
imperfect -aba, -ía hablaba I used to speak
future infintive + haber present tense endings: -é, -ás, -á, -emos, -án hablaré I will speak
shortcut future present of ir + a + infinitive voy a hablar I am going to speak
conditional infintive + -ía endings hablaría I would speak
command there’s a lot going on here habla, hable Ud. speak!
subjunctive swap the endings hable I speak
imperfect subjunctive -ara, -iera hablara I used to speak
present perfect present of haber + past participle he hablado I have spoken
past perfect imperfect of haber + past participle había hablado I had spoken
future perfect future of haber + past participle habré hablado I will have spoken
conditional perfect conditional of haber + past participle, then present subjunctive habría hablado… I would have spoken
present progressive present of estar + present participle estoy hanblando I am speaking
past progressive imperfect of estar + present participle estaba hablando I was speaking
past perfect progressive imperfect of haber + estado + past participle había estado hablado I had been speaking
subjunctive present perfect present subjunctive of haber + past participle haya hablado I had spoken
subjunctive past perfect imperfect subjunctive of haber + past participle hubiera hablado I would have spoken
shortcut subjunctive past perfect imperfect of ir + a + infinitive iba a hablar I was going to speak

Just learning the six highlighted tenses for the first dozen verbs above is a lot of work, but it captures a significant portion of the complexity in Spanish.

Imperative and the Subjunctive

Commands are important because you hear them a lot more than you read them, there are a number of irregular commands (remember: Ven DiSal Haz Ten VePons), and they prepare you for using the subjunctive, since both forms often swap the endings of -AR and -ER/IR verbs. If you go to a Mexican restaurant you’ll hear, “Ven!”, come in. If you’re around kids, you’ll hear adults say “ponla de nuevo”, put it back. You’ll hear commands all the time in person and on TV. Once you’re comfortable with commands, then the subjunctive will be second nature. The subjunctive is a mood that expresses a strong desire, a strong emotion, which isn’t that different from a command when you think about it.

Command Example Translation Explanation
Affirmative Tú ¡habla! ¡come! speak!, eat! third person singular of the present tense
Negative Tú, and all other commands ¡tengas! ¡no vengas! here! don’t come! the subjunctive; take the first person, present tense, yo-form, drop the “o”, and use the “other” ending

Pronouns

After learning verbs and tenses, you should look at how pronouns are used. Spanish uses the pronouns in multiple distinct ways, and it can be very confusing. First there are direct and indirect object pronouns, present in constructions like, “He gave it to him”, then there are pronouns used by reflexive verbs, that are kind of like saying “I shower (myself)”, and then there are times that the pronoun “se” is used in the passive voice like “se habla español”, “spanish is spoken”, or “se renta”, “for rent”.

Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns

In 2007 Tim Ferriss published a list of sentences he uses to learn a language in How to Learn (But Not Master) Any Language in 1 Hour. This post has become internet-famous in the language acquisition community, here, here, here, and several versions of his sentences have spread through the internet.

Sentence Example
The apple is red La manzana es roja
It is John’s apple Es la manzana de John
I give John the apple Yo doy a John la manzana
We give him the apple Nosotros le damos la manzana
He gives it to John Él la da a John
She gives it to him Ella se la da a él
Is the apple red? ¿Es la manzana roja?
The apples are red Las manzanas son rojas
I must give it to him Debo darsela a él
I want to give it to her Quiero darsela a ella
I’m going to know tomorrow Voy a saber mañana
I can’t eat the apple No puedo comer la manzana
I have eaten the apple He comdio la manzana

Although there’s no official version of the list, about half of it is always using direct and indirect objects and their pronouns. The rest of it focuses on forming a decalrative sentence, some verb phrases, auxilliary verbs, like “have”, negation, and ways to talk about the past and future. So, it’s not “learning a language in an hour”, but it’s a good use of your first couple of hours learning a language, and a good reminder to spend time becoming an object pronoun ninja.

Reflexive Verbs

English doesn’t have reflexive verbs in the same sense that Spanish does. It’s kind of like saying “myself” or “yourself” after a verb. The best way to get a handle on these verbs is using a few of them regularly until your brain gets used to the idea.

Verb Example Translation
ducharse me duché I showered
cepillarse me cepillé los dientes I brushed my teeth
acostarse me acosté I went to bed
dormirse me dormí I went to sleep
despertarse me desperté I woke up
levantarse me levanté I got out of bed

You shower (yourself), you brush (your own) teeth, you sleep (yourself), you can see how the “myself” trick falls apart very quickly after “shower yourself”. You just have to push through this. Also notice that “levantarse”, get up, is related to “levantar”, pick up, or raise. Pay attention to how the reflexivse form of a verb may have a different meanind that it’s non-reflexive cousin.

Here are some level two reflexive verbs.

Verb Example Translation
darse cuenta me de cuenta de que llegué tarde I realized that I was late
ponerse me puse enojado I got mad
ponerse me puso los calectines I put on socks
volverse se volvió loco He went crazy
irse me voy ahorito I’m going/leaving now, I’m headed out now
olvidarse se me olvidó It/they forget themselves to me, I forgot
caerse se me cayó el vaso I (accidentally) dropped the glass. Lit. The glass fell from me
romperse se romió el vaso The glass broke
acabarse se acabó el café The coffee ran out

The Impersonal and the Passive Voice

Things like, “se vende”, “for sale”, and “se habla español”, “spanish is spoken (here)” are examples of using the impersonal passive reflexive se. This is almost like saying “one” does something, or “people” do this or that, or some unspecified “they” do something. Like everything here, once you really internalize a few examples, it’s easier to pick up the rest.

The passive voice allows you to use sentences talking about a thing where the subject doesn’t exist, or is not important. A good example is, “the streets are swept on Thursdays.” This is passive or impersonal because it doesn’t matter in this scenario who is doing the street sweeping. Obviously it is someone, but it doesn’t matter in this situation. Another example is “the house was built last year.” The house isn’t the subject here, it is the object, the thing that was built. The subject, who or what built the house, is not mentioned.

In these cases, we use a conjugated ser + past participle construction. For “the streets are swept on Thursdays” we have “las calles son barridas los jueves”. For the house example, “the house was built last year”, we have “la casa fue construida el año pasado”.

Constructions

I compiled my own list of useful constructions outside of tenses. These help get you from sentences like, “the apple is red,” to, “I just finished cutting the apple”.

English Formula Example Translation
can present of poder puedo ir i can go
may (present) a lo mejor + present a lo mejor voy maybe i will go
may (subjunctive) quizá(s), tal vez + subjunctive quizá vaya i may go
could conditional of poder podría ir i could go
should conditional of deber debería ir i should go
must present of deber debo ir i must go
shall future of deber deberé ir i shall go
usually present of soler suelo ir i usually go
used to usually imperfect of soler solía ir i used to usually go
become/get ponerse + adj me puse cansado i got tired
I’m supposed to… se supone que + conjugated verb se supone que voy i’m supposed to go
managed to, ended up llegar a + infinitive llegué a ir i managed to go
started to ponerse a + infinitive se puse a ir i started to go
about to estar a punto de + infinitive estoy a punto de ir i’m abt to go
“for” estar por + infinitive estory por ir i’m “for” going
feel like tener ganas de tengo ganas de ir i feel like going
want to querer quiero ir i want to go
have to tener que tengo que ir i have to go
it’s necessary hace falta + infinitive/noun hace falta ir it’s necessary to go, going is needed
someone needs indirect object pronoun + hace falta + infinitive/noun me hace falta ir i need to go
need to necesitar + infinitive necesito ir i need to go
i just finished acabar de yo acabo de irme i just left
upon/when al + inf al irse upon leaving…
still/continuing seguir… sigo yendo i keep going, i’m still going
do again volver a ups, volví a hacerlo oops, I did it again

Here are some more advanced constructions.

English Formula Example Translation
may have preterite of poder + haber + past perfect pude haber ido i may have gone
could have conditional poder + haber + past perfect podría haber ido i could have gone
would’ve fut. conditional haber + past perfect habría ido i would have gone
should have conditional deber + haber + past perfect debería hbr ido i should have gone
should have (alt) imperfect subjunctive of haber + past participle hubiera ido i should have gone
if i had si + imperfect subjunctive of haber + past participle si hubiera ido if i had gone
must have present of deber + infinitive of haber + past participle debo haber ido i must have gone

Vocabulary

After that I tried to apply the same technique to vocabulary. There are a number of great first sets of words out there. The first thing I found was Ogden’s list of 850 words for Basic English. After that, there’s the list of 625 words from Gabriel Wyner’s book Fluent Forever. That list focuses on picturable words.

I think Gabriel Wyner’s list of 625 words is a great place to start, and the absolute bare minimum. It covers days, months, numbers, colors, foods, animals, other basic nouns, and basic verbs and modifiers. For my next set of memorized terms, I would just drill down into each one of those categories.

A great exercise is writing a little bit every day, summarizing your day, or telling a short story about something that happened to you, or describing a thing, and all of its component parts, like a bicycle, or a playground.

Questions

Along with key verbs and pronouns, question words should be absolutely second nature. From there, you should be familiar with expressions related to the time of day, durations, and frequencies to answer question about when. You should be familiar with prepositions like, inside, under, above, over there, etc. to answer questions about where. You should be familiar with numbers, and ordinal terms like, first, second, next to last, etc. to answer questions about how many. Questions about who and what go back to being able to use pronouns. Questions about why and how might rely on technical vocabulary, and maybe hypotheticals, and the subjunctive.

Conclusion

On your language journey, there’s several dimensions that that you need to balance. You need to know the essential verbs inside and out, in multiple tenses. You need to know some unfamiliar constructions with reflexive verbs and object pronouns. On top of all that, you need to acquire a healthy amount of vocabulary, including regular verbs. Finally, you need to be able to pose and answer simple questions.

  1. Essential irregular verbs
  2. Conjugation, focusing on present, preterite, and shortcut future
  3. Pronouns, object pronouns, refleive verbs
  4. Verb phrases and idioms
  5. Vocabulary and regular verbs
  6. Questions