Even if you are not yet fluent in the language, Spanish can be extremely accessible in written form. If you understand most of the words in a text, you can often figure out the meaning of an unknown word. When you need to look up a word in the dictionary, one obstacle may be that the dictionary does not include the exact form it finds in the text. But some basic rules of thumb can help you locate the word and determine its meaning without detailed knowledge of Spanish grammar.
Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to reading Spanish is its verb system. Spanish, like other related languages (but unlike English) has a synthetic verb system: in other words, verbs in Spanish can have a large number of different forms. However, as a practical way to start reading Spanish more proficiently, one strategy to consider is to (a) learn the most common irregular verb forms, along with the typical idiomatic meanings they may have; (b) learn some general rules that allow you to figure out the person/tense and, if necessary, look up most of the other verb forms.
So, going back to common verb forms first, which one should you really learn? From a sample of 2,000 newspaper and magazine articles in Spanish, the following are some of the most common verb forms:
(1) say oh is combined with another verb and means “he/she/it has…”; the next word will usually end in -Teen Prayed -doand will be the equivalent of an English form ending in -ed (technically called the ‘past participle’). To look up this past participle in the dictionary, you generally replace the ending -make with -r. For example, if you see has askedthe way to search in the dictionary is ask. You will see what this means “to ask”and therefore has asked it means “he/she asked”. Almost 50% of the sample articles contained this construct!
(two) say ohwhich appears in nearly 30% of the sample articles, is the plural equivalent of say oh and means “they have…”.
(3) flee Y said usually means it was Y saying respectively, and are the simple past tenses of the verbs be (“be be”) Y to decide (“tell”). The plural forms are were Y they saidmeaning “They were” Y “they said” respectively.
(4) there were is a form of the imperfect tense that is often used to mean “there was/there was…”.
(5) did is a simple past form of the verb makeand usually means “he/she/it did”, “he/she/it did”.
(6) could you is a conditional form of the verb canmeaning “be able”; the shape could you is often equivalent to English “I might”, “perhaps you can”;
(7) been is he past participle of the verb be: in other words, it literally means conditionand is often combined with say oh Prayed say oh mentioned above (for example has been… = he/she/it has been…);
(8) outside is a form commonly known as subjunctive: it means was/were when expressing a hypothetical condition, as in If you want… (“if he/she/it were…”); Traditionally, this form may not be learned until late in a Spanish course, but it actually occurs in 6% of items surveyed.
A large proportion of the looks sent to my own Spanish-English online dictionary are from this list of extremely common verb forms. In other words, there is evidence that many readers could improve their reading fluency simply by being more judicious about which word forms they choose to learn beforehand. As you can see, we are actually addressing a large number of grammatical topics that, as part of learning to speak Spanish fluently, you will need to address in more depth. But treating these very common verb forms on a case-by-case basis is simply suggested as a pragmatic reading strategy.
To decipher verbs in general, an online or electronic dictionary like the one I mention can be of great help. Given most verb forms, the dictionary will understand the form and take you to the corresponding entry. However, it will still improve your reading fluency to know some common rules of thumb, such as:
– The present tense of the verbs “he/she/it” ends in -in (replace with -Arkansas look up in the dictionary) or -me (replace with -er Prayed -to go).
– The form “they” ends in -year (replace with -Arkansas) Prayed -in (replace with -er Prayed -to go) at the present voltage. (Each form of “they” in the language ends in -not In any case.)
– If the form of the verb has an ending that begins in -aba (e.g they asked), then you have a past tense form; replace the part that starts with -aba with -r. So in this case, the verb is ask; the meaning is “they were asking”, “used to ask”— look at the end -not marking the they way.
– A verb that ends in -I to is the equivalent to -ababut for verbs ending in -er Prayed -to go. For example, eat comes from the verb contendermeaning “to eat” (so eat would probably mean “he/she was eating”, “he/she used to eat”).
– However, the end -estuary (Notice the ‘r’) is generally equivalent to French “would do…”. In this case, remove -I to, -ian etc to get the base verb. Then I would ask it means “he/she would ask”.
– A word that ends in -either is probably a “he she that” simple past tense form; replace -either with -ArkansasY -io with -er Prayed -to goto find the base verb.
– Tea they simple past tense forms ending in -Ronand in particular usually -Aron (replace with -Arkansas find the verb) or -iron (replace with -er Prayed -to go).
I hope I have suggested, then, how with a little judicious learning, you can develop a strategy for understanding articles in Spanish of a certain complexity. With such a strategy, reading will help you to acquire new vocabulary and, above all, to be more useful and enjoyable.
