Spanish for English speakers: where to start, and why you are not starting from zero

If English is your first language, Spanish is one of the kindest languages you can pick. It is not a free ride: some things English simply doesn't have, and a few things English actively gets wrong for you. But you start with more than you think, before the first lesson.

Let's sort it into three piles: what English gives you for free, where it misleads you, and what you have to build from scratch. Then, the order to do it in.

What English already gives you

Thousands of words. For centuries English borrowed its "educated" vocabulary from French and Latin, and Spanish grew straight out of Latin. So the bookish half of your dictionary is everyday Spanish: la información, la universidad, famoso, posible, el problema. Most of them follow a handful of rules, nation → nación, city → ciudad, famous → famoso; we collected them in Spanish words you already know.

The idea of an article. English has a and the, and so does Spanish: un libro "a book", el libro "the book". The concept is familiar; what changes is that the article now carries gender and number.

Much of the word order. A plain Spanish sentence runs like an English one: Ana compra pan "Ana buys bread". Questions start with the same question words: ¿Dónde vives? "Where you-live?" (= where do you live?). You don't need "do" at all.

Two tenses that look familiar. Estoy comiendo "I-am eating" and He comido "I-have eaten" are built just like their English twins. They are not always used the same way (more on that below), but the shape is already in your head.

Where English misleads you

Vowels. This is what gives an English accent away. English shrinks unstressed vowels to a quick "uh" and turns long vowels into glides: "no" comes out "noh-oo". Spanish has five short, pure vowels that keep their sound whether stressed or not: te-lé-fo-no, every o a full o. Reading Spanish with English letter values is the second trap: h is silent (hola ≈ "ola"), j is a breathy sound from the back of the throat, ll is mostly like the y in "yes". The course starts here, with the alphabet and how Spanish is read.

Words that look like friends. Embarazada is not "embarrassed" but "pregnant"; éxito is not "exit" but "success"; actualmente is "currently", not "actually". There are a few dozen of these, and they are worth knowing on sight: see false friends for English speakers.

Familiar tenses used differently. Estoy comiendo is only for what is happening right now. English "I'm leaving tomorrow" is the plain present in Spanish: Me voy mañana "Myself I-go tomorrow". And he comido covers "today" and "this week" in much of Spain, while in most of Latin America people prefer the simple past even there. Both are correct; you will hear both.

What you build from scratch

Gender. Every Spanish noun is masculine or feminine, and not by meaning: el libro "the book" is masculine, la mesa "the table" is feminine. Then adjectives agree with the noun: un piso pequeño, una casa pequeña. English has nothing like it, so learn every noun with its article from day one: articles, gender and number is one of the first topics of A1.

A verb ending for every person. English says "I speak, you speak, we speak". Spanish changes the ending each time: hablo, hablas, hablamos. Because the ending already shows who is speaking, the pronoun usually drops: Hablo español "I-speak Spanish", no yo needed.

Two verbs for "to be". Ser for what something is, estar for how or where it is: Es aburrido "He-is boring", Está aburrido "He-is bored". English uses one verb for both, so this choice has to be built on purpose: «ser» and «estar» to describe.

Two simple pasts. English "I lived in Madrid" can be viví or vivía in Spanish. Viví allí dos años "I-lived there two years" is a finished stretch, a closed box; Vivía cerca del mar "I-was-living near the sea" is the background, the way things were. English hints at it with "used to" and "was ...-ing", but never forces you to choose. Spanish forces it in every story: indefinite and imperfect when narrating.

Two kinds of "you". Tú for friends and people your age, usted for strangers and anyone you'd address formally. In the plural, Latin America uses ustedes for everyone; Spain also has vosotros for friends.

The road: recognise, understand, say it out loud

An order that works:

1. Recognise. Start from what is already familiar: the cognates, the shape of a sentence. Your first phrases are built out of words you half-know.
2. Understand how it works. Take on what English doesn't have: gender, verb endings, ser and estar. A gloss that follows the Spanish word for word helps here: Me gusta el café "To-me pleases the coffee" shows you why it is me gustan los libros with the books.
3. Say it out loud. Recognising Spanish and speaking it are different skills; the second only grows from your own voice. That is why every evening in the course has a speaking block, even the shortest: Speaking from the first evening.

The first chapter of the course, Sonidos, saludos y presentaciones "Sounds, greetings and introductions", works on exactly this start: the five vowels, reading, saying who you are. You'll find it on the A1 page.

If you already know some Spanish, the level test shows which chapter to begin with. A level is only a starting point: being able to understand A2 is not the same as speaking at A2, and the course treats them separately. Take the level test: ten minutes, free.