If you would like to say the word “Spanish” in Spanish, you would simply say, “español”. Using it as an adjective? Then you would say “española” when describing female-gendered objects or people and “español” when describing objects or people of a masculine gender.
Feeling truly comfortable with Spanish nouns and adjectives can seem like a challenge at first, especially since you always want to consider the gender of the object you’re describing or naming. But most early learners get a handle on them fairly naturally. That’s particularly the case if you already speak related languages, such as English, French, or Italian. Both Italian and French are directly related to Spanish. All stem from Latin and are therefore in the “romance language” family—while English uses thousands of French and Italian/Spanish/Latin words that are known as cognates (linguistic cousins). It’s because of this relationship that you’ll find English terms like the word “error” that look and sound remarkably similar in French (erreur), Italian (errore), and Spanish (error).
You’ll also find that Spanish has a straightforward pronunciation system—with few of the irregularities you’d find in English spelling and pronunciation. Best of all, the Spanish alphabet is almost the same as the other western European languages, English included. You only have three more letters to learn: ch (chay), ñ (eñe), and ll (elle).
Rosetta Stone’s Dynamic Immersion® methodology teaches you the language, not just the words. What makes it so effective is that we prepare you to use your new language in your everyday life. So it’s not just about the features, but what you’re able to do because of them. That way, you’ll be ready to handle everyday situations with confidence.
Learn Spanish Words and Phrases
One of the very first steps a beginner must take in the journey to learn Spanish is the pronunciation of the letters in the Spanish alphabet and the Spanish words that represent numbers. For English speakers, learning the Spanish alphabet can be fairly straightforward, because the differences between the two alphabets are really very minor. In fact, many letters of the Spanish alphabet sounds very similar to their English counterparts. But other Spanish letters sound entirely different from English. For example, the letter j in Spanish is pronounced as an h sound, which you may recognize from Spanish names such as Jose or Javier.
Spanish numbers are next. Many of us already know the Spanish words to count to ten:
- uno
- dos
- tres
- cuatro
- cinco
- seis
- siete
- ocho
- nueve
- diez
Once you have these basic numbers down, you can move on to numbers like ciento veintiocho (128) by applying what you already know with some simple patterns for forming the names of larger Spanish numbers.
Spanish is a phonetically consistent language, much more so than English. This means that Spanish words are nearly always pronounced just the way they are spelled. This phonetic consistency of the Spanish language means you can learn to confidently pronounce long, multi-syllable words with confidence.
Acquiring the skills to accurately pronounce Spanish requires immediate feedback on your pronunciation efforts. Rosetta Stone helps you get the pronunciation right instantly with TruAccent. Our patented speech engine instantly compares your voice to native and non-native speakers, so you get real-time feedback for the most accurate pronunciation. It’s also adjustable, which allows you to fine-tune your accent. TruAccent is among the most powerful tools for helping you learn and speak the Spanish language.
After you have acquired basic and commonly-used words and short phrases, you can move onto learning the longer phrases that are the backbone of everyday Spanish conversations. Rosetta Stone’s impactful and digestible 10-minute lessons are built in exactly this way. They’ll guide you from the basics to speaking Spanish with confidence, by consistently structuring Spanish vocabulary acquisition in context with everyday conversational situations.
Try Our Award-Winning App
Surround yourself with Spanish whenever, wherever with the Rosetta Stone app .
Download a unit and knock it out on the train or a flight. Select a 5-10 minute lesson and sneak it in while you wait in line or for your ride to show up. And explore dynamic features, like Seek and Speak, where you can point at an object in the real world and get a translation .
The best part? You don’t have to choose between app or desktop. Both come with your subscription and sync, so you can switch between devices seamlessly.
