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Grammar Summary

Spanish 1 Unidad 2 Etapa 2

Saying Where You Are Going:   The Verb ir

The verb ir means "to go."  It is an irregular verb.

As a question, vamos can mean "Shall we go?" but stated as a suggestion it means "Let's go!"

To ask (to) where someone is going, we say "¿Adónde vas?"  To ask where someone is located, we say "¿Dónde estás?"   Notice how asking Adónde... is similiar to asking to where...?

Telling Time

To ask what time it is, we say "¿Qué hora es?"

To give the time for every hour except one o'clock, we say "Son las + hour."

To say it is one o'clock, we say "Es la una."  (BRAIN TEASER:  Why do we say "Son las" for every hour except one o'clock and "Es la" for one o'clock?  See the answer at the bottom of this page.)

To give the time for minutes after the hour, use y + minutes:                               Son las cinco y cuarto (It's a quarter after five - 5:15)                                 Es la una y cinco (It's five after one - 1:05)                                     Son las doce y media (It's half past twelve - 12:30)

To give the time for minutes before the hour, use menos + minutes:                                Son las cinco menos cuarto (It's a quarter until five - 4:45)                                 Es la una menos cinco (It's five until one - 12:55)

To talk about when something will happen, use:                                               ¿A qué hora + verb + event?      ¿A qué hora es la clase?       A la una (At 1:00)

Describing Location With the Verb estar    

To say where people or things are located, use the verb estar.   It is an irregular verb.  Here are its forms in the Present Indicative Tense:

Notice the accent mark on several of the forms of estar.  It is important that you write and pronounce it correctly, because without the accent mark, esta or estas means "this" or "these."

Asking Questions:  Interrogative Words

To ask simple yes/no questions you can use rising intonation to imply a question (¿Isabel va a la escuela?) or put the verb first (¿Va Isabel a la escuela?)  Notice that questions in Spanish are always preceded by an inverted question mark.  When typing these on a Windows computer, you can find it under the Insert / Symbols Menu.

To ask a question that starts with a question word, like "who, what, when, where, why?" you start with the question word, followed by the verb:

Sometimes ¿qué? and ¿cuál? can be followed by words other than verbs.  ¿Qué? can be followed by a noun, but ¿Cuál? or ¿Cuáles? cannot:  ¿Qué libro mira Paco? but  ¿Cuáles de los libros mira Paco?