Spanglish for Gringos

All the Spanglish grammar you need but were afraid to learn.

1. Gender, Number and Tense

Spanish words have "Gender" - words can be masculine, feminine or neutral. Masculine words end with "o," feminine words end with "a." Who cares about the neuter? That's why they are neutral, people don't care about them one way or another. Mostly "Gender" applies to names of things and descriptive words like "lunk head." Usually distinguishing between masculine and feminine is pretty logical.

Sometimes it isn't logical. But hey, we Anglos refer to a huge, steel, heavily armed Battleship as a "She." Go figure.

Spanish words have "Number" but so do English words - so all we are going to tell you is that plural masculine uses "os" endings and plural feminine words end in, "as." Again we'll skip the Neutral.

English does "Tense" a little differently than Spanish. Or at least it did. It probably always will. So, for right now, I'll we'll leave this whole "Tense" issue in past, err, or future.

In fact, beyond the one little lesson we give you in the next paragraph, don't worry about the "Gender" thing either. Mixing up gender is always good for a chuckle in conversation but your meaning will still be clear, well, at least in context, clear enough.

Just keep in mind that all of the words in a simple sentence will change a little to "agree" with what ever number or gender is being used. One gringo - El Gringo - becomes, Los Gringos when there's a bunch of 'em. They also become a pain in the butt if you add beer but that's a different sort of grammar lesson. Similarly La Gringa - the Gringo Gal - is Las Gringas in plural. We won't EVEN mention what happens when you add beer (cervesa) to that bunch,

2. Sentence Structure

Often, Spanish word order is reversed from English. Who cares why? Sometimes doing it wrong will cause a Spanish speaker to puzzle a bit at what you are trying to say, but they'll work it out and happily correct you.

With enough practice, and the patient help of your new Spanish speaking friends, you'll do the sentence structure, gender, number and tense <more> correctly without ever really studying it, just as native speakers do!

3. Spanish Pronunciation

Spanish is much easier than English to pronounce once you understand the little differences. For one, it's softer. The name itself holds a clue. Gringos say "Sp-AA-nish" with that hard, Bronx A against the back of your throat. Spanish speakers say, "Sp-AH-nish" more of a breath sound.

That one's subtle. Here are other more noticeable differences:

The double L is unusual to the English speaker. Just remember that it's more like an English "y."

Spanish, like many other European Languages, is accented. The only accent mark we bother to explain is the '~' or 'tilde' Placed over an "n" it softens the pronunciation to something more like "nya" rather than "en"

Señora (Lady) is "scene-YO-rrrah". Most gringos mispronounce it as, "sin-your-a."

The trilled rr in Spanish is easier to handle if you think about how a Scotsman would say, "it's a GRRReat day."

PRONUNCIATION IS IMPORTANT TO PRACTICE.

Just learning the words isn't enough. Learning the proper letter sounds is very important since a mix up can change the meaning of a word or render your Spanglish completely unintelligible.

For instance: did you know that Gringo money has a Spanish name? A Dollar - Dolar pronounced dthoe-LAHR - the Spanish name for the German Thaler - was a type of gold coin used by the Spanish in the new world in the 16th and 17th centuries. They don't use the term anymore. However "dolor" (doe-LORE) means "pain" and doler (do-LAIR) means "to hurt." So spending a little time leaning vowel sounds will be very beneficial.

I used the dollar example because Spanglish for Gringos fans might actually want to try a sentence like "Aqui esta dollar" which, if you are not careful, a Spanish speaker will hear as "Here is to hurt." That would be bad.

You both might get a little chuckle in confusing money with pain, on the other hand they may actually agree. The simple fact is, in many cases, good pronunciation can turn a limited vocabulary and poor grammar into a surprisingly useful tool.

So practice your vowel sounds.

Say them now: aw-ay-ee-oh-ou