Unlocking Spanish with Paul Noble: Your key to language success with the bestselling language coach

The Checklist

You have now reached the final part of Chapter 1. Once you have finished this short section, you will not only have completed your first chapter but you will also understand how this book works as the other chapters follow the same pattern, with your Spanish getting ever more sophisticated as you complete each chapter.

The section you are now on will be the final part of each chapter and is what I call “The Checklist”. It involves nothing more than a read-through of a selection of some of the words or expressions you have so far encountered.

You will actually see The Checklist twice. The first time you will see that the Spanish words are written in black (on the left-hand side) and that the English words are written in orange (on the right-hand side) – and you know what orange means… cover up!

So, what I want you to do here is to cover up the English words (which are written in orange on the right-hand side) while you read through the list of Spanish words on the left. Read through them all, from the top of the list to the bottom, and see if you can recall what they mean in English (uncover one orange word at a time to check if you’ve remembered the meaning correctly). If you can go through the entire list, giving the correct English meaning for each of the Spanish words / expressions without making more than three mistakes in total, then you’re done. If not, then go through the list again. Keep doing this, either working from the top of the list to the bottom or from the bottom to the top (it doesn’t matter which) until you can do it without making more than three mistakes.

Got it? Then let’s go!

Finished working through that checklist and made less than three mistakes?Yes? Wonderful!

As that’s the case, what I want you to do now is to repeat exactly the same process again below, except that this time you’ll be reading through the English and trying to recall the Spanish. So, it will be the other way around. So, just relax and work your way up and down the list until you can give the correct Spanish translation for each of the English words / expressions again without making more than three mistakes in total. It’s not a competition – and I’m not asking you to memorise them.

Just look at the English words (on the left-hand side) while you cover up the orange Spanish words on the right-hand side and see if you can remember how to say them in Spanish.You’ll be surprised by how much you get right, even on the first try.

Okay, off you go!

Well, that’s it, you’re done with Chapter 1! Now, don’t try to hold onto or remember anything you’ve learnt here. Everything you learn in earlier chapters will be brought up again and reinforced in later chapters.You don’t need to do anything extra or make any effort to memorise anything. The book has been organised so that it does that for you. Now, off you go and have a rest.You’ve earned it!

Between Chapters Tip!

Between chapters, I’m going to be giving you various tips on language learning. These will range from useful tips about the Spanish language itself to advice on how to fit learning a language in with your daily routine. Ready for the first one? Here it is!

Tip Number One – study (at least a little) every day!

Learning a language is like building a fire – if you don’t tend to it, it will go out. So, once you have decided to learn a foreign language, you really should study it every day.

It doesn’t have to be for a long time though. Just five or ten minutes each day will be enough, so long as you keep it up. Doing these five or ten minutes will stop you forgetting what you’ve already learnt and, over time, will let you put more meat on the bones of what you’re learning.

As for what counts towards those five or ten minutes, well that’s up to you. Whilst you’re working with this book, I would recommend that your five or ten minutes should be spent here learning with me. Once you’re done here, however, your five or ten minutes could be spent reading a Spanish newspaper, watching a Spanish film, or chatting with a Spanish-speaking acquaintance.You could even attend a class if you want to learn in a more formal setting. The important thing, though, is to make sure that you do a little every day.

CHAPTER 2

I booked a table, ordered dinner and then paid the bill. What did you do?

I booked a table, ordered dinner and then paid the bill. What did you do?

The first chapter has shown you that you can learn how to create full and complex sentences in Spanish with relative ease. It also began to show you how you can convert huge numbers of English words into Spanish and then start using them straight away.

We will be doing more of both here, which will allow you to make enormous strides with your Spanish in an incredibly short space of time.

Let’s begin by carrying out a second Word Robbery…

Time to steal some words!

Word Robbery Number 2

The second group of words we are going to steal are words that end in “ion” and “ation”.Words that end in “ation” in English usually end in “ación” in Spanish. Take a look:

Words such as:

There are more than 1250 “ion” words in English and they are related to similar words in Spanish, as you can see above; we can start using these in Spanish right now.

Adding them to the words we’ve already stolen so far, we have now reached a total of 2000 words stolen – and we’re only on Chapter 2!

Words stolen so far 2000

So, we’ve carried out our second Word Robbery and have gained more than 1000 words ending in “ion” and “ation” and it only took us 30 seconds to “learn” them.

Now, words ending in “ation” in English actually come with yet another benefit. Not only can we steal them to use in Spanish in the way shown above, but we can also use them to make the past tense in Spanish.

Let me show you how.

We’ll take “reservación” (reservation) as an example.

The first thing we’re going to do with “reservación” is to cut off the “ación” at the end. Do this now – what are you left with?

reserv

(re-surv)

Good. Now, onto the end of this, I want you to add “é” (pronounced “ay”).

Doing so, what does that give you?

reservé

(re-surv-ay)

This means “I reserved”.

So, by simply adding the letter “é” (pronounced “ay” – just like it is on the end of the English word “café”) we have accessed the past tense in Spanish.

Now, let’s try doing this again, this time with the word “invitación”. Once more, cut off the “ación” from the end of the word and replace it with the “é” you find at the end of the word “café”.

What do you get?

invité

(in-vit-ay)

This means “I invited”.

Let’s try this one more time, as the more practice you get, the easier it will become.

We’ll take the word “preparación” as our starting point this time. Again, cut off the “ación” from the end and add an “é” in its place.

What does that give you?

preparé

(pre-par-ay)

This means “I prepared”.

“The dinner” in Spanish is:

la cena

(la say-ner / thay-ner)

So, how would you say “I prepared the dinner”?

Preparé la cena.

(pre-par-ay la say-ner / thay-ner)

Alright, let’s return again to our 1250 “ation” words for a moment.

Once more, what was “reservation” in Spanish?

reservación

(re-surv-ass-ee-on / re-surv-ath-ee-on)

Now, as before, let’s cut the “ación” off the end of “reservación” and replace it with the “é” from “café” to create the word that means “reserved” in Spanish.

So, doing that, what is “reserved”?

reservé

(re-surv-ay)

And this actually means both “reserved” and “booked”. So, how would you say, “I reserved” / “I booked”?

Reservé

(re-surv-ay)

“A table” in Spanish is:

una mesa

(oon-er may-ser)

So, how would you say “I reserved a table” / “I booked a table”?

Reservé una mesa.

(re-surv-ay oon-er may-ser)

“For you” in Spanish is:

para usted

(pa-ra oo-stedd)

So, how would you say “I reserved a table for you” / “I booked a table for you”?

Reservé una mesa para usted.

(re-surv-ay oon-er may-ser pa-ra oo-stedd)

And again, what was “the dinner” in Spanish?

la cena

(la say-ner / thay-ner)

And what was “for you”?

para usted

(pa-ra oo-stedd)

So, if “para usted” means “for you”, what do you think is the word for “for” in Spanish?

para

(pa-ra)

Now, to say “for dinner” in Spanish, you will literally say “for the dinner”. How do you think you would say that?

para la cena

(pa-ra la say-ner / thay-ner)

And so how would you say “I reserved a table for dinner” / “I booked a table for dinner”?

Reservé una mesa para la cena.

(re-surv-ay oon-er may-ser pa-ra la say-ner / thay-ner)

As you can see, these “ation” / “ación” words really are very useful. Not only do you get more than 1000 words right away – like “reservation” (reservación), “preparation” (preparación), “information” (información), and so on – for free but these “ation” words also give you access to the past tense in Spanish, allowing you to create many, many new words such as “reserved”, “prepared”, “informed”, and so on. And we achieve this simply by cutting off the “ation” / “ación” from the end of the word and adding an “é” in its place.

We can even create new words in some quite unexpected ways using this technique.

For instance, “ordination” in Spanish is:

ordenación

(or-den-ass-ee-on / or-den-ath-ee-on)

And so, cutting off the “ación” and replacing it with the “é” from “café”, what would “I ordained” be in Spanish?

Ordené

(or-den-ay)

Now, you are probably asking yourself “why on earth am I being taught the words for ‘ordination’ and ‘I ordained’?”

Well, the word “ordination” / “ordenación” actually refers to “the granting of holy orders” and, even more literally, means something simpler still like “ordering”.

When you cut off the “ación” from the end of “ordenación” and add the “é” from “café” in its place, you end up with the Spanish word that means not only “I ordained” but also “I ordered”.

So, now that you know this, how could you say in Spanish “I ordered dinner”?

Ordené la cena.

(or-den-ay la say-ner / thay-ner)

“Soup” in Spanish is:

sopa

(soap-er)

So how would you say “I ordered soup”?

Ordené sopa.

(or-den-ay soap-er)

And once again how would you say “for dinner” (literally “for the dinner”) in Spanish?

para la cena

(pa-ra la say-ner / thay-ner)

Now put these two things together and say “I ordered soup for dinner”.

Ordené sopa para la cena.

(or-den-ay soap-er pa-ra la say-ner / thay-ner)

And how would you say “I ordered soup for you”?

Ordené sopa para usted.

(or-den-ay soap-er pa-ra oo-stedd)

Good, now can you recall how to say “I visited”?

Visité

(visit-ay)

How about “I spent”?

Pasé

(pass-ay)

“I reserved” / “I booked”?

Reservé

(re-surv-ay)

“I prepared”?

Preparé

(pre-par-ay)

“I ordered”?

Ordené

(or-den-ay)

“I paid” in Spanish is:

Pagué

(pag-ay)

“The bill” in Spanish is literally “the addition”, which in Spanish is:

la cuenta

(la kwen-ta)

So how would you say “I paid the bill”?

Pagué la cuenta.

(pag-ay la kwen-ta)

Again, how would you say “I booked a table”?

Reservé una mesa.

(re-surv-ay oon-er may-ser)

What about “I ordered dinner”?

Ordené la cena.

(or-den-ay la say-ner / thay-ner)

And again what was “I paid the bill”?

Pagué la cuenta.

(pag-ay la kwen-ta)

Let’s now try making a list out of these things.We’ll start by saying “I booked a table, ordered dinner, paid the bill.” Take your time working it out in your head, bit by bit – there really is no rush! So again “I booked a table, ordered dinner, paid the bill”:

Reservé una mesa, ordené la cena, pagué la cuenta.

(re-surv-ay oon-er may-ser, or-den-ay la say-ner / thay-ner, pag-ay la kwen-ta)

Let’s add “then” into this sentence to make it sound more natural. “Then” in Spanish is:

luego

(loo-way-go)

First try simply saying “then paid the bill”. How would you say that?

luego pagué la cuenta

(loo-way-go pag-ay la kwen-ta)

And what was “and” in Spanish?

y

(ee)

So now say “and then paid the bill”.

y luego pagué la cuenta

(ee loo-way-go pag-ay la kwen-ta)

Okay, let’s try to put this all together and say “I booked a table, ordered dinner and then paid the bill.”

Reservé una mesa, ordené la cena y luego pagué la cuenta.

(re-surv-ay oon-er may-ser, or-den-ay la say-ner / thay-ner ee loo-way-go pag-ay la kwen-ta)

Not a bad sentence. Let’s make it bigger still.

Again, what is “I spent”?

Pasé

(pass-ay)

And do you remember what “you spent” is, from the “Building Blocks” section in Chapter 1?

Pasó

(pass-o)

So, as you can see, when you want to say “I…” did something in the past you add “é” onto the end of the word but when you want to say “you…” did something in the past you instead add this “ó” which we can see on the end of “you spent” above – pasó. Now, how do you say “I prepared” in Spanish?

Preparé

(pre-par-ay)

So, how do you think would you say “you prepared”?

Preparó

(pre-par-o)

So, just as with “you spent”, there is this “ó” on the end, whereas when you say “I spent”, “I prepared”, and so on, there will be an “é” on the end.

To remember which way around these work, simply think to yourself “I need an ‘é’ when I talk about ‘mé’ in the past, but an ‘ó’ when I talk about ‘yóu’”.

Now, if you want to say “what did you prepare?” in Spanish, it’s very simple. All you need to say is “what you prepared?”.

“What” in Spanish is:

Qué

(kay)

Now again, how would you say “I prepared” in Spanish?

Preparé

(pre-par-ay)

And what about “you prepared”?

Preparó

(pre-par-o)

And how would you say “What”?

Qué

(kay)

So, how would you say “what did you prepare?” (literally “what you prepared?”)?

¿Qué preparó? ⁴

(kay pre-par-o)

And what is “I reserved” / “I booked” in Spanish?

Reservé

(re-surv-ay)

So how would you say “you reserved” / “you booked”?

Reservó

(re-surv-o)

So how would you say “what did you reserve?” (literally “what you reserved?”)?

¿Qué reservó?

(kay re-surv-o)

Now, you’ll have noticed that, when I’ve taught you things like “you reserved”, “you prepared”, “you spent”, and so on, there are two words in English but in Spanish I’ve only given you one.You may even have wondered to yourself “where’s the ‘you’?”.

Well, in Spanish, there is a separate word for “you” that you could add to these sentences if you wanted to but you don’t normally need to. This is because, in Spanish, “reservó” by itself means “you reserved” and “preparó” by itself means “you prepared” and “pasó” by itself means “you spent”. Each of these words has an “ó” on the end of them, so you know that the person means “you”.