Feedback

This is the public release version of this grammar primer. However, we still welcome your feedback! If you have any feedback or questions concerning this primer, please send an email to [email protected]

Recommended Knowledge

Before learning grammar with this guide, you should do the following to prepare:

  1. Read through the Refold Spanish Quickstart guide to get a foundation in immersion learning.
  2. Have (at least) 10 hours of immersion under your belt.
  3. Have a popup dictionary for easy word lookups. For the current recommended popup-dictionary, click here.

Mindset

Memorizing grammar does not work

Languages are big. Each language has thousands of different patterns you need to learn in order to speak naturally. These patterns are called "grammar".

Most grammar guides teach complicated rules to help you translate from English into Spanish. These rules are overly extensive and hard to learn.

At Refold, we start with understanding the language, which is much easier. Once you can understand the language, the grammar explanations will make a lot more sense. Over time, you’ll develop an instinct for how to create Spanish sentences, just like you have in English.

Watch this video to learn more.

How to Understand a Sentence

“You can’t learn anything new, until you are open enough to forget everything you think you know”

-James Victore

When you start learning a language, the first skill you need is the ability to break a sentence down into parts and identify what each part means. For basic sentences, there are 4 key parts:

  1. The subject: The "main actor" of the sentence.
  2. The action (verb): The action being done.
  3. The tense [1]: When the action is taking place.
  4. The objects [2]: The other nouns or pronouns in the sentence.

If you can figure out these 4 things, then you can understand the meaning of most Spanish sentences.

There are a few other pieces you’ll need to learn, but they are easy to make sense of once you understand the 4 components above. Specifically:

  1. Modifiers: Adjectives, diminutives, superlatives.
  2. Prepositions: the physical relationship between objects and subjects.

We’ll discuss those briefly at the end of this guide.