All About Me: Grammar and Phonics (AQA GCSE Spanish): Revision Note

All about me: grammar

To give basic details about yourself, you need to know some important grammar - articles (words for ‘the’ and ‘a/an’), making nouns plural, and how to use adjectives correctly. Let’s look at these grammar points in more detail.

Articles

Mi amiga se llama Sofía. Max, un chico argentino, es el amigo de Sofía. Es bajo y tiene el pelo negro y los ojos verdes.

• In the text above, the words meaning 'the' and 'a' are called articles

• The definite article ‘the’ and the indefinite article ‘a’ or ‘an’ are used differently in Spanish and English

• We often use the definite article in Spanish but not in English - Tengo los ojos azules (I have (the) blue eyes)

• In Spanish, articles must agree with nouns in gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural)

Examples:

• Tom tiene una hermana - Tom has a sister (feminine singular noun)

• El perro está aquí - The dog is here (masculine singular noun)

• ¿Dónde están los niños? - Where are the children? (plural noun)

Plural nouns

Mi amiga Sofía es alemana y tiene el pelo corto y castaño. Tiene los ojos verdes y es muy alta.

• Use plural nouns when there is more than one of something - this is useful when talking about your appearance, e.g. los ojos (eyes)

• Spanish nouns ending in a vowel add -s to form their plural, like most English nouns: un gato, dos gatos

• Nouns ending in a consonant add -es: un animal, dos animales

• Nouns ending in -z change the -z to -c and add -es: una nariz, dos narices

• Nouns ending in -ón or -ión add -es and lose the accent: una canción, dos canciones

Regular adjective agreement

Max es bajo y tiene el pelo castaño y los ojos verdes.

• You can see three adjectives in the text above (short, brown, green)

• Adjectives are describing words, like 'blue', 'big' or 'Canadian'

• Adjectives usually appear after the noun in Spanish - el pelo castaño ('the hair brown')

• Adjectives in Spanish must agree with the noun in gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural)

• You may need to change the ending of an adjective to make it agree with the noun - this is called adjective agreement

• Adjectives ending in -e change for number (singular or plural) but not for gender (masculine or feminine)

• Most Spanish adjectives are regular and follow this pattern

• Irregular adjectives which do not follow this pattern need learning separately

All about me: phonics

• The Spanish sound [ll] is pronounced like this:

  me llamo