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Grammar

This is where the rule makes sense. In Exercises you practise until it comes out.

edumaterial's parts within the level. The European framework does not subdivide them.

CEFR A1 part 1

• Everything agrees: nouns, articles and adjectives

  Spanish nouns belong to a grammatical gender: masculine or feminine. Gender is part of the word's grammar, not a judgement about the object. A table can be feminine and a book masculine even though neither object has a biological sex. The safest learning unit is therefore not “mesa” but “la mesa”, and not “libro” but “el libro”. The article carries information that an English noun does not show.

  A13 Your turn

• The present tense: three endings and you can talk

  A Spanish infinitive ends in -ar, -er or -ir. To build a regular present form, remove that infinitive ending and add the ending for the person: “hablar” gives the stem “habl-”, and “hablo” means that I speak. Because the ending normally identifies the subject, Spanish often leaves out “yo”, “tú” and the other pronouns. Pronouns return when they clarify, contrast or emphasise who acts.

  A13 Your turn

• One English “to be”, three Spanish choices

  English “to be” covers several jobs. Spanish separates three of the most frequent A1 jobs: “ser” identifies or classifies, “estar” locates a known entity or reports its current state, and “hay” introduces the existence of something. The useful question is not simply “permanent or temporary?”. Location uses “estar” even when it is permanent, and an event uses “ser” to say where it takes place.

  A13 Your turn

CEFR A1 part 2

• Essential irregular present forms for A1

  At A1, a few irregular forms carry essential messages: “voy” for movement, “tengo” for possession and age, “quiero” for wants, “puedo” for ability, and “hago” for activities. They are useful before a learner can control every irregularity in Spanish. The PCIC places the broad system of common vowel and consonant irregularities in A2. This page therefore assesses concrete A1 uses, while the complete tables are a reference that prevents partial or misleading paradigms.

  A13 Your turn

• Questions and negatives: less machinery than English

  A yes/no question can keep the same words as a statement. Speech uses question intonation; writing frames the whole question with “¿” and “?”. Spanish does not insert an auxiliary equivalent to English do. An information question begins with a stressed question expression such as “qué”, “quién” or “dónde”. These forms carry a written accent when they ask or exclaim, including in indirect questions.

  A13 Your turn

• Me gusta: the sentence turns round

  Spanish builds “me gusta” around the thing that is pleasing. In “Me gusta la música”, “la música” is the grammatical subject and “me” identifies the experiencer. This is why a word-for-word “yo gusto la música” does not express the English meaning “I like music”. Choose gusta or gustan by looking after the verb: one thing or an activity normally takes gusta; several countable things take gustan.

  A13 Your turn

CEFR A2 part 1

• The preterite: place a finished event on the timeline

  The preterite presents an event as a complete whole. A two-minute call and a ten-year stay can both use it if the speaker places each one inside a finished period. Closed markers such as “ayer”, “el sábado”, “en 2024” and “la semana pasada” make this viewpoint especially clear. They locate the event; they do not merely say that it was long ago.

  A23 Your turn

• The imperfect: build the background of a past scene

  Use the imperfect when the sentence tells what the setting was like, what normally happened, what time it was or what was already in progress. It gives the reader the view from inside the past situation. The tense does not say that an action was unfinished in real life. It simply leaves its boundaries outside the sentence.

  A23 Your turn

• Object pronouns: track the thing and the recipient

  A direct object is the person or thing directly affected by the verb: “Leo la carta” becomes “La leo”. An indirect object is the recipient, destination or experiencer: “Doy el mapa a Leo” includes “le”. Gender chooses among “lo/la/los/las” only after the direct-object role is clear. “Le/les” does not agree with the thing given; it points to the recipient.

  A23 Your turn

CEFR A2 part 2

• The present perfect: a past event connected to now

  The present perfect combines present “haber” with a past participle: “he hablado”, “hemos comido”. It often places a finished event inside a period that the speaker treats as still open or relevant now. This connection is grammatical and regional, not a universal clock rule. Speakers choose the perfect and the preterite differently across the Spanish-speaking world.

  A23 Your turn

• Reflexive and pronominal verbs: keep the pronoun with its person

  In “me lavo”, the subject performs the action on the same person: the use is genuinely reflexive. In “me voy”, the pronoun does not mean that I go myself; “irse” is a pronominal verb meaning to leave. Learn the infinitive with “-se” when the pronoun belongs to the lexical entry: “acordarse”, “quedarse”, “dormirse”. Dropping it can remove the meaning or create a different verb.

  A23 Your turn

• Future choices and conditional wishes

  A future time reference does not automatically require the simple future. Spanish can use the present for a fixed timetable, ir a + infinitive for an intention or decision already in motion, and the simple future for a projection, promise or plan viewed from now. Regional, genre and speaker preferences affect the balance, so this is a choice of viewpoint rather than a mechanical translation of English will. The conditional shares its stem with the future but changes the endings. At this stage, its safest productive role is the conventional wish pattern me gustaría + infinitive. The full form table is useful as a reference, but open hypothetical systems such as si pudiera, iría belong to later progression in the PCIC grammar inventory.

  A23 Your turn

CEFR B1 part 1

• The present subjunctive: build the form before choosing the mood

  The present subjunctive can point to now or later. Present names its time orientation; subjunctive marks how the speaker frames the clause—as wanted, requested, evaluated, doubted or still pending rather than simply asserted. Learn the form and the choice separately. A correct trigger with a wrong ending still fails, and a perfect form in an asserted fact still uses the wrong mood.

  B13 Your turn

• When to use the subjunctive: assertion, reaction and pending events

  A connector is not a magic trigger. “Cuando” can introduce a habit already presented as real or an event that has not happened yet. A plain clause can assert a proposition, while a frame such as “es importante que” evaluates another subject's action. The reliable question is: does the speaker present the subordinate content as information, or place it inside a wish, reaction, evaluation, purpose or pending future?

  B13 Your turn

• The imperative: choose the addressee, polarity and regional form

  Imperatives address tú, usted, nosotros, vosotros or ustedes. Spanish does not have a first-person singular command because a speaker cannot issue a command to yo as a separate addressee. Before conjugating, fix three variables: who receives the instruction, whether it is affirmative or negative, and which plural address system the context uses.

  B13 Your turn

CEFR B1 part 2

• The imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive: distance, sequence and unreal frames

  The imperfect subjunctive can be selected by a past main verb, but it can also create distance from reality in a present or future hypothetical frame. In “Quería que vinieras”, it follows a past wish; in “Si vinieras mañana, hablaríamos”, the arrival is future and hypothetical. Do not call every imperfect-subjunctive event past. First identify the clause relationship; then identify the time reference supplied by the context.

  B13 Your turn

• Real si-clauses: conditions the speaker still treats as possible

  A real conditional links a condition the speaker treats as possible with its consequence: “Si hay entradas, vamos al concierto.” It does not claim that tickets exist; it keeps that possibility open. At this level the si-clause uses the indicative. Hypothetical “si tuviera” and impossible-past “si hubiera tenido” patterns belong to the B2 inventory and are deliberately deferred.

  B13 Your turn

• Reported speech at B1: move the viewpoint, not every tense blindly

  Direct speech preserves the original speaker's words. Reported speech rebuilds the message from a new speaker, place and time: dice que for a current report, dijo que for a past reporting frame. A change is justified only when the viewpoint changes. If the information, place or day is still current, Spanish can retain a present form or deictic word instead of shifting it mechanically.

  B13 Your turn

CEFR B2 part 1

• Passive and impersonal choices: patient, agent and result

  Passive se has a grammatical subject that undergoes the action, so the verb agrees with it: “Se publicaron dos informes.” Impersonal se has no such subject and keeps third-person singular: “Se entrevistó a dos especialistas.” The number of things mentioned does not decide the construction. Agreement depends on grammatical structure: a direct human object marked by personal a is not the subject of an impersonal se clause.

  B23 Your turn

• Verbal periphrases: viewpoint on obligation, phase and duration

  In a verbal periphrasis, the two verb forms behave as one predicate. The first verb carries person, number, tense and mood; the infinitive, gerund or participle names the event and helps express obligation, phase, duration or result. Not every adjacent pair of verbs is a periphrasis. In “Salió corriendo”, the gerund can describe manner; in “Sigue corriendo”, seguir presents the event as continuing. Meaning and syntactic unity matter.

  B23 Your turn

• Verb–preposition patterns: lexical government and clause architecture

  In “depender de”, de is not chosen because the following noun has a universal meaning. It is selected by this verbal sense and must travel with it into a question or relative clause: “¿De qué depende?” and “el factor del que depende”. Learn a usable entry: verb + preposition + meaning + one new noun. A bare translation often hides the required link.

  B23 Your turn

CEFR B2 part 2

• Subjunctive in relative clauses: how the speaker commits to a referent

  Indicative normally presents the antecedent as identified or accepted in the discourse: “Uso la sala que tiene dos ventanas.” Subjunctive presents the matching referent as sought, required, non-specific or denied: “Busco una sala que tenga dos ventanas.” The sought room may exist in the real world, and an identified room can later turn out not to exist. The mood marks the speaker's discourse commitment, not an objective existence detector.

  B23 Your turn

• Discourse connectors: relation, scope and speaker commitment

  Before choosing a polished expression, write the logical relation in plain language: adds another reason, gives the cause, derives a consequence, concedes an obstacle, contrasts two subjects or reformulates an idea. Near-synonyms do not always share syntax or scope. “Porque” introduces a cause inside a sentence; “por lo tanto” normally presents a consequence as a separate discourse move.

  B23 Your turn

• Word order and information structure: topic, focus and clitic links

  A neutral subject–verb order is possible in many contexts, but speakers reorganise constituents to connect with what is already active and to place new or contrastive information where it carries focus. Word order is therefore not free. A fronted object can require a clitic, and a postverbal subject answers a different discourse question from a preverbal topic.

  B23 Your turn

CEFR C1

• Compound tenses as timelines and speaker stance

  Every compound tense combines a finite form of haber with one participle. The finite auxiliary locates the viewpoint; the participle presents the event as already completed relative to that viewpoint. Compare “ya habían cerrado cuando llegamos”, “ya habrán cerrado cuando lleguemos” and “ya habrían cerrado si nadie hubiera llamado”. At C1, form is only the beginning. The future and conditional can also reduce or redistribute the speaker's commitment. “Habrá olvidado la cita” is an inference about a completed event; “habría aceptado el cargo, según el comunicado” presents reported information as unconfirmed. Context—not the auxiliary alone—selects the reading.

  C13 Your turn

• Ser, estar and participles: event, result and lexical meaning

  “La verja fue cerrada al anochecer” packages a closing event around the affected object. “La verja estaba cerrada al amanecer” describes the state visible later. Both situations can last briefly or indefinitely, so duration does not choose the verb. With a true passive, the participle agrees with the grammatical subject and an agent may be added when relevant. With a result state, the participle or adjective also agrees, but an agent phrase is normally absent because the sentence describes how the subject stands, not who performed the event.

  C13 Your turn

• Register and politeness: calibrating distance, burden and voice

  A form is not polite in isolation. Speakers weigh social distance, relative roles, the burden of the request, the channel, the setting and local convention. A short present-tense request may be cooperative in a routine service encounter, while the same shape can sound abrupt in a formal email about a substantial favour. Advanced control means choosing enough mitigation and then stopping. Repeating por favor, adding several apologies and combining every conditional formula can create distance, irony or pressure instead of warmth.

  C13 Your turn

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