Spanish grammar isn’t more difficult than any other language.
But it does have a few rules that may seem strange if your first language is English. The good news is these rules can be learned quickly using Spanish grammar hacking.
In an earlier article, I wrote about two approaches you can take to learning a new language: that of hacking and that of mastery.
My worry is that sometimes students are sitting right in between, not really using the hacking process to improve quickly or using the mastery approach to achieve very high levels.
In this post, you’ll learn specifically about the hacking process for Spanish grammar.
The ideas in this post are inspired by Tim Ferriss’ latest book, “The Four Hour Chef”. Tim introduces a unique approach to language learning that inspires and aligns with a lot of what we teach here at Real Fast Spanish.
The hacking approach says that although there are hundreds of grammar rules and tricks you need to know to speak with perfect fluency, they aren’t all created equal.
Some rules are far more common than others.
Using the 80/20 approach, we can discover that 20% of the rules get used 80% of the time.
Even this morning as I was writing this post, I had a question from a student about the imperative (command) tense.
The student was stressed about having to remember to use an accent on top of a letter in the imperative conjugation. Yet, we won’t find an accent in any other conjugation for this verb.
The example was the command form of dormirse (to fall asleep):
Duérmete
In addition, the student also wanted to know why we put the te after the verb when it goes before the verb in the normal form:
Te duermes
This is just one example of the complexity you need to know in order to have perfect Spanish grammar.
My advice was not to worry about this unique situation because it doesn’t come up that often. And, if you are only interested in being conversational, you won’t need it and you won’t be tested on it, so don’t let it stress you out.
If you are intending to write a Ph.D. thesis in Spanish or become a Spanish author then yeah you are going to have to learn everything eventually (and have a really good spell checker!).
But for students that want to take the hacking approach, here’s what you need to know to make the most efficient use of your time with learning Spanish grammar.
The 13 Spanish grammar hacking sentences you need to know are:
| English | Español |
|---|---|
|
The apple is red It is John’s apple I give John the apple We give him the apple |
La manzana es roja Es la manzana de John Le doy la manzana a John Le damos la manzana |
|
He gives it to John She gives it to him |
Él se la da a John Ella se la da |
|
I must give it to him I want to give it to her I’m going to buy it tomorrow I can’t eat the apple I have bought the apple |
Debo dársela a él Quiero dársela (a ella) Voy a comprarla mañana No puedo comer la manzana He comprado la manzana |
|
Is the apple red? The apples are red |
¿La manzana es roja? Las manzanas son rojas |
Commit these sentences to memory and then practice using them.
Once you have them locked in, you can apply these sentences to almost any situation by substituting other nouns and verbs.
In addition, you can also read about direct and indirect object pronouns, where we typically get the most number of questions about these sentences.
These 13 sentences don’t cover absolutely everything that you need to know. But that is that point! They focus on the most important components of grammar first to save you valuable time and brainpower. They will help you progress down a path to a conversational level of Spanish quickly. And that’s ultimately what you should be aiming for first.
Language hacking principles are extremely useful but they are not only strictly limited to grammar.
Once you get to a conversational level, not only will you feel satisfied with what you have achieved but you will have built a solid foundation for going on to higher levels of mastery in Spanish.
But for now, knowing the rules of Spanish grammar hacking will be one important step towards conversing with ease and moving away from being labeled a ‘gringo’ in South America or a ‘guiri’ in Spain.
How else can you improve your Spanish grammar?
Looks great and very helpful. Are you able to give a second table so we can compare other ways of applying this please? For example, substitute out the verb to give with another so we can see a repeated pattern? Much appreciated.
Hi Smoking Chili, thanks for the question!
Here are some more examples with the noun changed to ‘la idea’ and the verb changed to ‘decir’ to help you look for patterns and to practice with:
The idea is interesting – La idea es interesante
It is María’s idea – Es la idea de María
I tell Carlos the idea – Le digo la idea a Carlos
We tell him the idea – Le decimos la idea
He tells it to Jose – Él se la dice a Carlos
She tells it to him – Ella se la dice
I have to tell it to him – Tengo que decírsela (a él)
I want to tell it to her – Quiero decírsela (a ella)
I’m going to tell him the idea tomorrow – Le voy a decir la idea mañana
I can’t tell you the idea – No te puedo decir la idea
I have told him the idea – Le he dicho la idea
Is the idea interesting? – ¿Es la idea interesante?
The ideas are interesting – Las ideas son interesantes
This is kind of personal, but for the way I talk in enlish, some conditional phrases were very helpful to learn – I would, I could I should:
– me gustaría una taza de té
– yo podría hacer eso
– yo debería hacer eso
Thanks SB, yes these are useful conjugations. Just keep in mind that we tend to use the conditional tense in a slightly different way in English and the conditional tense between English and Spanish doesn’t always translate as you expect it ‘would’ (or expect it ‘will’, for example).
Why is “conocer” used instead of “saber” for the translation of “I’m going to know tomorrow”?
Hi Dede, this sentence example depends a lot on context. The most important part is “voy + a + (verb in infinitive form)”.
Whether it’s “saber” or “conocer” depends on what you are going to “know” tomorrow.
If, for example, someone asks ¿Conoces esta ciudad? (Do you know this city? or are you familiar with this city?), you could respond and say “no, pero la voy a conocer mañana” (No but I’m going to know (get to know) it tomorrow).
In the sentence “le doy la manzana a John”, does one have to use the indirect object of le? I realize that “a John” acts to clarify but does an IO have to be used whenever there is one, even if the object is named elsewhere?
Just to be clear, would “Doy la manzana a John” be incorrect and if it is, why?
Hola Justin, thanks for the question. In general the “a John” is optional, the “le” is required. Sometimes it’s difficult to give a good “why?” answer. If I said “I give it John”, you would say the sentence needs a “to”, then if I asked “why?” the answer is “just because that’s the way it is”. Similarly, if I said “I give to John the apple”, we might want to know why there shouldn’t be a “to” in this sentence. Again, in general, the convention in Spanish is to have both the “le” and the “a John” in these kinds of sentences.
BTW – the correct question form is – “La manzana es roja?”
Hola Robert, yes there are a few different ways to ask questions in Spanish. You can also ask “La manzana es roja ¿no?” or “La manzana es roja ¿verdad?” or you could also ask ¿Es roja la manzana? There are lots of possibilities.
Andrew is correct. But the most used form is ¿La manzana es roja? It is written exactly the same as the statement, the only thing that changes is the intonation, is very difficult to explain by text. I am a native spanish speaker, sorry for my bad english.
¡Gracias Satoshi! Thanks for your comment. Also, your English looks great!! You don’t need to apologise 🙂
¡Hola! Me llamo Juan.
Este blog es muy interesante para los estudiantes de español. Pues, tengo una pregunta para ti. En los ejemplos siguientes leyó esto en inglés: I’m going to tell him the idea tomorrow: “Le voy a decir la idea mañana ” en español. La frase: Voy a decirle la idea mañana, ¿es correcta?
Hola Juan, las dos son correctas (“Le voy a decir…” y “Voy a decirle…”). Gracias por la pregunta.
Hello, thanks for all the good tips. I have a question about 4,of the examples. Why is it that when you translate giving the apple you use “le” but when you translate give it you use “se” it seems like the main difference is the use of a noun vs a pronoun (apple vs. it) but I really don’t understand the difference. Can you explain or guide me to a reference? Thanks
Hola Kristin, thanks for the question!! In the sentences with “se la”, you have combined a direct object “la” (it) with an indirect object “le” (him). In Spanish, when you combine “le” and “la”, you have to say “se la”. Check out our article on direct and indirect objects for more examples.
Thanks
Good point about ignoring the lesser used rules at first. But the rule about “duérmete” is actually based on a larger rule, which is the “preservation of stress” rule.
Remember how we have three main rules for where to put the stress in a Spanish word: (1) if the word ends in n, s, or a vowel the stress goes on the second-last syllable, (2) otherwise the stress goes on the last syllable, (3) unless there is an accent which moves the stress to the accented syllable. This gives the background information for the “preservation of stress” rule.
Consider a word that we want to modify without changing which syllable is stressed. We preserve the original stress with accents. The verb “duerme”, which ends in a vowel, naturally stresses the second-last syllable, as in “DUER-me”. If we use the verb in the imperative we want to preserve the original stress, to say “DUER-me-te” so we write it with an accent “duérmete”.
This rule applies as well when we use objects with compound verbs. “Quiere lavarse las manos” puts the accent on “lavarse” on the second-last syllable, “la-VAR-se”. If we want to use the short form for this sentence, we need an accent to preserve the stress. “Quiere lavárselas” will read as “la-VAR-se-las” and preserve the stress on the syllable “VAR” as desired.
This rule works in reverse as well. The word “balcón” ends in an “n” and therefore it needs an accent to put the stress on the last syllable as “bal-CON”. The plural form, however, does not: “balcones” ends in “s” so it puts the stress on the desired syllable automatically, “bal-CO-nes”.
What about a word like “lápiz”? If we make it plural we still need an accent to preserve the stress on the original syllable, so we write “lápices”.
So, many of the issues with accents can be understood by following the “preservation of stress” rule.
Thanks for sharing Marcos. It’s a wonderful comment!!!
My only worry is that the “preservation of stress” rule is just another thing for early stage Spanish students to think about and to remember. This post is written for beginners that want to get started with speaking Spanish quickly. The day I wrote this post I got that question, and the student I was working with couldn’t say things like “voy a hablar contigo” or “no lo puedo ver”. She saw “duérmete” somewhere and freaked out! So I said “don’t worry about it” focus on “voy a…”, “tengo que…”, other important Spanish verbs, and these 13 sentences. The imperative mood, the use of and location of accents, and the preservation of stress can come later.
In the 3rd example do we need Le & John and if so, why?
Love this list! Question about #11: “Me he comido la manzana”
Why the “me”? Is it incorrect to leave that out?
Also, have a question about this. He comida la manzana seems correct and the “me” unnecessary?
There is subtle change in meaning here. With the “me”, the phrase means the “whole” apple, without the “me” the phrase means “some” apple. But, in terms of this article and “grammar hacking”, this is a subtlety that isn’t worth spending too much time on for the moment. It sounds like you have the sentences under control, now it’s time to go and practice using them in a Spanish conversation!
Do you have a way to let us know the sounds of the Spanish alphabet?
I would like to know how to recognize & pronounce money amounts, numbers, days of the week, months of the year etc.
Also, directions, taxi, bus, train, airplane, restaurant etc.
Hola Lorna, yes I recently recorded a video on the Spanish alphabet. You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/d20sAECNv4Y
She gives it to him – Ella se la da
It doesn’t make sense. How can you tell that she gives it to a male if you don’t say Ella se la da a él? The indirect object pronoun le (here changed to se) is used for both to him and to her, right? 🙄
Hola Fredrik, yes, you’re right, we need some context to know what “it” is and to “whom” it is going. If I said in English “I gave it to them”, this sentence is normal and common in English, but we need some prior conversation for it to make sense.
We need to assume that the previous sentence was something like:
– Does she give charity to the school? – ¿Ella da caridad al colegio?
– Yes, she gives it to them every week – Sí, se la da cada semana.
We can then replace “charity” and “school” with “apple” and “Juan” or any other nouns you can imagine.
Ok, thanks Andrew 😊
In ‘I give John the apple’. Why is it Le doy and not just doy. If I can get to the bottom of this it will be a great help to me. Keep up the great work.
Hola Terry, in Spanish we need to say:
I give the apple to him – Le doy la manzana.
Then when we want to say specifically who we are giving the apple to we can add “a Juan” to the previous Spanish sentence.
I give the apple to John – Le doy la manzana a Juan.
I understand that in the mind of an English native, this seems strange. But in the mind of a Spanish native, this second sentence is totally normal. Sometimes asking “why” questions doesn’t always help when learning languages, sometimes it’s better to ask “how” questions (e.g. How can I remember this? or How can I get used to this?)
Is it structured this way because manzana is femenina? Hence the la? What if the thing in question was masculino??
Yes, the “la” represents “la manzana”. If the object is masculine, we would need to say “lo”.
Thank you very much for replying…i will be studying these phrases and hopefully applying them to many scenarios🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
You’re welcome! 🙂
In Mexico they say gringo which is North America, and maybe others countries in Central America. In Argentina which is South America, you’are called yankis. Gringo doesn’t mean the same everywhere, the origin of the word in Spain mean foreigners that speak bad Spanish, in Argentina that was applied to Italians, main foreign immigration. Yanki will be understood everywhere to mean US citizens.
Thanks for sharing Billy! 🙂
Me he comido la manzana…no entiedo porque hay “me”. Puedo decir la oración sin “me”?
Hola Kim, yes, you can say the sentence without “me” but it changes the meaning from eating ‘all’ of the apple to ‘some’ of the apple. I’m going to update the example to avoid this subtlety.
I understand most of the 13 sentences. However, I don’t understand in the sentences such as “He gives it to him,” why the “se” is needed. Why can’t it be “El la da a John”? What purpose does the “se” serve in this sentence and the others with “se”? I get why the “le” is necessary. but not the “se”.
Thank you.
Hola Cynthia, check out our article on direct and indirect object pronouns, you can find a link in the article or you can search it on the site.