I never knew

Question

A few minutes ago was my first time on the Conjugator. I typed in "hablar" and almost went into shock.

There are 54 different spellings for "to speak". Not to mention the "perfects" and "perfect subjunctives". I didnt even count those.

I've seen the light and was almost blinded...I remember I was on Spanish chat on this site and a guy told me to learn grammar before I try to chat b/c I would just get confused. I see what he was talking about now.

Tell that to any 6 or 7 year old that doesn't even know what grammar means. I think one could chat quite well. - 0074b507, Jan 29, 2012

True - craftinine, Jan 29, 2012

Answer 1

LOL!!!!!

Any latin language is funny like that. No worries, really. A good "non-native" speaker will only need to use like....don't know....maybe 10 tenses. As a native speaker i don't think I use much more than 20. Subjunctive....forget about that completely..It's very poetic.

Do not falter. Learn spanish and you will have potentially 1 thousand millions of new friends.

Good luck!!!

lol..."forget about subjunctive"...i needed that. Gracias pepitogrillo. - craftinine, Jan 29, 2012

Forget the subjunctive? Ouch, seriously I wouldn't If I were you, It's used ALOT. :) - soytommy, Jan 29, 2012

You use the subjunctive a lot Tommy. Where do you live? In Camelot? - pepitogrillo, Jan 29, 2012

guess you were joking. :) - pepitogrillo, Jan 29, 2012

I agree with Tommy. You CANNOT forget about the subjunctive. It is very common in everyday speech. >. - NikkiLR, Jan 29, 2012

... And it is not "poetic" - NikkiLR, Jan 29, 2012

Answer 2

As a native speaker i don't think I use much more than 20. Subjunctive....forget about that completely..It's very poetic.

Native speaker or not, there are far fewer than twenty tenses (it's not fair to count the combination of tense with mood). Nor should you forget about the subjunctive. It's used more frequently than in English and, what's more, it readily recognizable (unlike in English).

Voted up, true. - soytommy, Jan 29, 2012

Probably you say that because you are not a native speaker.I don't understand about fair or unfair when you refer to the combination of tense and mood. There is a subtlety that you won't be able to reach in my language as I won't be able in yours. - pepitogrillo, Jan 29, 2012

I do use 20 tenses as a matter of fact. Perhaps I am overeducated, I don't know.Suggestion:just learn, do not judge my language as I don't judge yours. Nite - pepitogrillo, Jan 29, 2012

Voting! =) - NikkiLR, Jan 29, 2012

Answer 3

In Spanish, all infinitive verbs end in ar, ir, or er. Regular Spanish verbs follow a set of rules for the endings in each tense depending on what the infinitive (the to xxx) ends with. Learn these endings for the tenses first. It will make learning Spanish much easier.

And remember, English is no different than Spanish in this regard.

Example: I go, you go, he/she goes, we go, they go.

The difference is that in Spanish, the person doing the action is a part of the verb tense.

Example:

Voy - I go Va - You go Vas - You go (informal) etc...

Good luck, and welcome to the forum.

Gracias. I just need to wrap my mind around this concept. - craftinine, Jan 29, 2012

Answer 4

Trust me, I know how you feel. When I first started learning I almost gave up but TRUST me and the other millions of people that can talk spanish, It isn't hard at all once you get the grasp of all of them!

Don't get frightened by numbers, as someone above said, kids can talk it without knowing that.

Good Luck!!

Also, just to point out, there aren't exactly 54 ways of spelling or conjugating 'to speak', once you've mastered the subjunctive and conjugating haber and hablar it makes that number very very small.

Thanks for the encouragment - craftinine, Jan 29, 2012