Spanish - Overview

General statement

Start with an infinitive

In English: general statements often begin with an -ing verb, e.g. "Exercising is good for you."

In Spanish: use an infinitive, e.g.

Dibujar es divertido. 
(Drawing is fun.)

Start with el, la, los, las

Los monos son animales inteligentes. 
(Monkeys are intelligent animals.)

Stress

All words in Spanish have one syllable that is pronounced with extra emphasis. This is called stress.

• An accent mark tells you which syllable should be stressed.
• If there's no accent mark
  • a word ends in a vowel, n or s, the second-to-last syllable usually receives the stress. E.g. examen, comes.
  • a word ends in a consonant other than n or s, the last syllable is stressed. E.g. hotel, reloj.