On today's lesson on the Language Tutor, I wanna talk to you about something that's
very foundational and fundamental in learning any language is that, and that
is how to spell it and write it correctly.
Now, I hear students all the time, even Spanish speaking students
that tell me, you know, I can speak Spanish, but I don't write it.
I, I can't write it, or I can't read it.
And so I, I always tell them, yes, you can, with just a little bit of help.
Yes, you can and you can too.
So today I wanna go over just some fundamental elements of how
to write correctly in Spanish.
Now the first thing I wanna tell you is the easy part of Spanish
is that you write it exactly like it's, it sounds, you listen to the
sounds and you put those on paper.
Okay?
It's very much.
Um, an easy process.
So we're gonna go over about oh five or six words today just to sort of tell you
what, show you what I'm talking about.
All right.
Now I wanna start with a very basic word and, and I'm not gonna
put this on the board yet, but I want you just to think about it.
In a previous video we talked about, uh, the alphabet in Spanish, and we
talked about how the vowels are about 90% of being able to pronounce Spanish
correctly, like a native speaker.
It's the same thing for writing and for reading as well.
So think about this word.
The word that I want to use very at the very beginning is a simple word.
It's the word for book, and that word is libro.
Libro.
Now let's, let's break down that sound.
We, of course, we're, we're hearing that sound so we know what that is.
It's the same in English, so we know our first letter is gonna be an L Now.
Here's where sometimes we get a little confused because we hear this
sound E, E, and a lot of times I catch my students going, oh, that's
the letter E, but no, it's not.
Remember what an E sounds like an E?
Sounds like, eh.
So we gotta think what letter sounds like E.
And of course that is the letter I.
So Lee is simply the, um, I first two letters in the word li l i.
Now of course we know the B is gonna be the same in Spanish and
English ba, so that's gonna be a B.
And so we put the B as a third letter pretty easy.
Now li bro, we've got a flap there.
Think about what letter in the alphabet did we say is a flap?
You got it?
It's the letter R.
So that sound is gonna be r.
And then of course we ended it with O and there's only one letter in Spanish that
sounds like O, and that's the letter O.
So LiRo, if we just simply break down those sounds, we can
spell it effectively in Spanish.
Now let's look at another one.
I'm gonna use the word for flag in Spanish, and that word is Bandera Bandera.
So break it down slowly.
All right.
We know that B sound is A, B A is a right cuz that's the only letter
in Spanish that makes the A sound.
So we're saying Baban, obviously that's a b a n de.
Now remember that D, we push it forward a little bit.
So bang there.
But now ask yourself what makes the eh sound.
You got it.
It's the letter E.
So band.
So we now we have B A n d E and then Rah there, agains that flap.
We know that's an R.
And then at the end we're left with the very last sound of, ah, Bandera.
All right, so that would make an A.
So b A n d e r A.
Again, we're just spelling this exactly like it sounds.
All right, let's take another one.
Let's take the word I, I say this often.
Sometimes when I start a lesson, I say, make sure you have your, your notebook.
All right, so let's take the word, first of all.
Let's start with that sound now.
The, the sound in Spanish is never going to be a cue.
That's how we do it in English.
But we do not do a Q with a Q in Spanish.
Remember, a q uh is gonna is always gonna have a U and it's gonna sound like a K.
So remember that rule q U equals K, Q U equals K.
I have my students learn that because anytime you're gonna say the
Q U, it's gonna come out like a K.
Now that leaves us with only two options of how to say the.
Now we know from our, our lesson on the alphabet.
That K is a part of the alphabet, but we don't really ever use it, right?
So now we're only left with one letter that can give us the sound, so we
know that's gonna be the letter C.
Now the letter C is gonna make that sound in front of certain vowels and in
front of certain vowels is gonna be a s.
So in front of a c e, it would be in, if it's a c i, it would be.
But now if it's an A or an O or an or a U, it's gonna be a sound.
All right.
So let's think about that sound now.
Cool.
Think about, we know the sea is making the sound.
What's making the Ooh sound?
It can only be one thing.
You got it?
It's the letter U.
Now listen to the next part.
Ua.
So we're going, Ooh.
And then, ah.
So just think about it.
We gotta go.
Ooh.
Ah.
So we know c e U and then what?
Ah, that's right.
The letter A.
So we have c u, A is the only way in Spanish to make that UA sound.
Now we've got the.
We hear that D sound, although it's a little bit more forward in our mouth.
And then we've got, eh, eh, and of course that's not the letter A.
We know that A sounds like, ah, it can only be the letter E.
That's the only one that makes that sound.
So d e quad.
Now let's do the next part.
There's that flap again, the R, so C U A D e R.
And then we simply end it with null.
N O and now we have the word.
All right, let's take just a couple of more.
Let's take the number 40, just as another little example of that sound.
The ua, c u a.
We know that's, uh, that's making the UA sound Reta R.
E N T A.
So we're just spelling it exactly like it sounds.
Okay.
Now I want to use a word that I know you've probably all
heard before, and that is Ro.
Ro.
We've even seen that on certain commercials, guiro.
All right, now we're starting with the sound.
We know it's not a K.
All right, so that's only gonna leave a couple options key.
Now what's making that e sound?
It really can only be one thing, the letter I.
So let's think about what if we put the letter C in front of that, cuz we know
a C can sound like a cook sometimes.
What would happen?
It would totally change the word, wouldn't it?
Because a C in front of an eye sounds like so.
Nope.
Can't be the C.
We gotta throw that out.
That only leaves us one option to make the K sound.
And that's the Q.
Now remember that a Q will never be by itself in Spanish ever.
It always must have the letter you with it.
They cannot be separated.
Now you the, you can go off and do its own thing.
It can go in other words and be by itself, but Q cannot survive without you.
They have to go together.
So now we got Q You.
All right, so we've established a sound E letter, igh.
Now we've got the beginning of the word.
Now we've just gotta put the ero E.
There's the flap again.
R o.
So here we go, Gero.
We got it now.
All right, one more.
Let's do one more.
I wanna use the word.
A lot of us have heard that word before.
Here's.
An exception to the rule.
You always spell Spanish like it sounds, but HS are silent.
Okay.
So I've seen, I've seen some of my Spanish speaker students when they
spell, they might write a word with an H, like a LA to speak and they'll
start it with an A, just because they don't know yet that that has an H on it.
This is one of those things where you just have to know.
You just have to study.
Sometimes we have to study a little bit, and so you have to know that
the word I see in the has an H on it.
Okay?
It's silent.
We don't say it, but it's gotta be there in the spelling.
Okay?
So I, I, that's letter A i C.
Okay.
Again, you gotta know it's a C, not an S.
It's one of those things you, you know, when you're learning the word,
you just kind of pick up the spelling.
Little tips for the spelling.
I cnda.
I cnda, so H A C I E N D A.
All right.
So for the most part, we can just spell Spanish exactly like it sounds.
But again, there's always those one or two little things you
gotta pick up as you go along.
Okay?
All right, guys, make sure you practice all that.
Think of some words in Spanish, practice spelling them, and then check yourself.
I bet before long you're gonna be spelling just like an expert.
All right?
Friends, thanks for watching the Language Tutor.
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