One of the first concepts about Spanish that you need to understand as you begin learning the language is that of verb conjugation. Basically, conjugation is the changing of verb forms so that the listener knows who or what is performing the action of the verb and when. Chances are that the present-tense conjugation is the one you'll learn first.

Habits die hard, and one of them those of us who grew up speaking English have is thinking that the "b" and the "v" are pronounced differently. That's true enough in English — but not in Spanish! In terms of pronunciation, b and v might as well be the same letter in Spanish. (That's one reason many native Spanish speakers get the two letters mixed up while spelling, and why a few words, such as ceviche or cebiche, are correct with either spelling.)

What can make matters mildly difficult is that the sound of b/v can vary depending on where it appears in relation to other sounds. Read more...

De is almost certainly the most common preposition in Spanish. It usually means "of" or "from" and is also used in a wide range of verbal and adjectival phrases. One reason it's so common, as explained in this lesson, is that Spanish, unlike English, doesn't allow the willy-nilly use of nouns as adjectives. So de fills that void, letting you use nouns to form descriptive phrases. De also is used to indicate possession, origin and other characteristics.

One of the common uses of adverbs in Spanish, as in English, is to explain when something takes place. Our newest lesson looks at more than a dozen such adverbs and provides examples of their use.