Spanish/Lessons/¿Cómo te llamas?

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Contents 1 Dialogue 2 Hello! 3 What's your name? 4 Simple Vocabulary 5 The Spanish Alphabet 5.1 Consonants 5.2 Vowels 6 Acute accents 7 How do you spell that? 8 Summary

[edit] Dialogue

Raúl: ¡Hola! Me llamo Raúl. ¿Cómo te llamas?

Sofía: Hola, Raúl. Me llamo Sofía. ¿Cómo se escribe Raúl?

Raúl: Se escribe R-A-Ú-L. ¿Qué tal?

Sofía: Bien. ¿Y tú?

Raúl: Fenomenal, gracias.

Sofía: ¡Qué fantástico! Adiós, Raúl.

Raúl: ¡Hasta luego!

Translation (wait until the end of the lesson).

[edit] Hello!

Spanish Vocabulary • ¿Cómo te llamas? ¡Hola! Hello!
Inglés	Español (help)
Hello	Hola (listen)
Good morning!	¡Buenos días! (listen)
Good day!
Good evening!	¡Buenas tardes! (listen)
Good night!	¡Buenas noches! (listen)
See you later!	¡Hasta luego! (listen)
See you tomorrow!	¡Hasta mañana! (listen)
Goodbye	Adiós (listen)

Notes

• Hasta means "until"; luego means "then"; you can translate it as "see you later" or "see you soon". In the same vein, hasta mañana means "see you tomorrow".
• Note the upside-down exclamation (¡) and question marks (¿); you will learn more about them in lesson three.

Examples

• ¡Buenos días, clase!

  Good morning, class!

• Hola, ¿Qué tal hoy?

  Hello, how are you today?

• Adiós, ¡hasta luego!

  Bye, see you soon!

Go to the exercise.

[edit] What's your name?

To ask someone else's name in Spanish, use Cómo, then one of the phrases in the table below (¿Cómo te llamas? is "What's your name?").

In Spanish, to say your name, you use the reflexive verb llamarse, which means literally to call oneself (Me llamo Robert is "My name is Robert").

Spanish Verb • ¿Cómo te llamas? Llamarse To call oneself
Inglés	Español
I am called	Me llamo
You (familiar, singular) are called	Te llamas
He/She/You (formal, singular) is/are called	Se llama
We are called	Nos llamamos
You (familiar, plural) are called	Os llamáis
They/You (formal, plural) are called	Se llaman

Notes

• "Os llamáis" is only used in Spain. In most other Spanish-speaking countries, "Se llaman" is used in both familiar and formal situations.

Examples

• Me llamo Chris

  My name is Chris

• Se llaman Peter y Robert

  They're called Peter and Robert.

• ¿Cómo te llamas?

  What's your name?

• ¿Cómo se llama?

  What's his/her name?

Go to the exercise.

[edit] Simple Vocabulary

Spanish Vocabulary • ¿Cómo te llamas? ¿Qué tal? How are you?
Inglés	Español
How are you?	¿Qué tal? (listen)
	¿Cómo estás?
Great!	Fantástico
	Fantástica
Genial	Genial
Very well	Muy bien
Well	Bien
Bad	Mal
Really bad	Fatal
And you?	¿Y tú?
Thank you	Gracias (listen)
Thank you very much	Muchas gracias
You're Welcome	De nada
Yes	Sí
No	No

Note

For some of the words above, there are two options. The one ending in "o" is for males, and the one ending in "a" is for females. It's all to do with agreement, which is covered in future chapters.

Examples

• Roberto: Hola, Rosa. ¿Qué tal?

  Hello, Rose. How are you?

• Rosa: Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y tú, Roberto?

  Very well, thanks. And you, Robert?

• Roberto: Bien también. ¡Hasta luego!

  I'm good too. See you later!

Go to the exercise.

[edit] The Spanish Alphabet

Here is the normal Spanish alphabet. However, words aren't alphabetized by it. Please read the notes and sections below. (Blue letters are a part of the normal English alphabet).

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29
a	b	c	ch	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	ll	m	n	ñ	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z
Notes about Ñ
N and Ñ are considered two different letters. They are alphabetized as separate letters, so Ñ always comes after N, regardless of where it appears in the word. Ex: muñeca comes after municipal.
Notes about CH and LL
CH and LL are distinct letters of the alphabet, but in 1994, the Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy) declared that they should be treated as digraphs for collation purposes. Accordingly, words beginning with CH and LL are now alphabetized under C and L, respectively.
Notes about K and W
K and W are part of the alphabet but are mostly seen in foreign derived words and names, such as karate and whiskey. For instance, kilo is commonly used to refer to a kilogram.

[edit] Consonants

Although the above will help you understand, proper pronunciation of Spanish consonants is a bit more complicated:

Most of the consonants are pronounced as they are in American English with these exceptions:

• b like the English b at the start of a word and after m or n, (IPA: /b/). Elsewhere, especially between vowels, it is softer, often like a blend between English v and b.
• c before i and e like English th in "think" (in Latin America is like English s) (European IPA: /θ/; Latin American IPA: /s/)
• c before a, o, u and other consonants, like English k (IPA: /k/)

• The same sound for e and i is written like que and qui, where the u is silent (IPA: /ke/ and /ki/).

• ch like ch in “cheese” (IPA: /tʃ/)
• d at the start of a word and after n, like English d in "under" (IPA: /d/)
• d between vowels (even if these vowels belong to different words) similar to English th in "mother" (IPA: /ð/); at the end of words like "universidad" you may hear a similar sound, too.
• g before e or i like the Scottish pronunciation of ch in "loch" (IPA: /x/)
• g before a, o, u, like g in “get” (IPA: /g/)

• The same sound for e and i is written like gue and gui, where the u is silent (IPA: /ge/ and /gi/).

• h is always silent (except in the digraph ch)
• j like the h in hotel, or like the Scottish pronunciation of ch in "loch" (IPA: /h/ or /x/)
• ll is pronounced like gli in Italian "famiglia," or as English y in “yes” (IPA: /ʎ/)
• ñ like nio in “onion” (or gn in French cognac) (IPA: /ɲ/)
• q like the English k; occurs only before ue or ui (IPA: /k/)
• r at the beginning of a word; after l, n, or s; or when doubled (rr), it is pronounced as a full trill (IPA: /r/), elsewhere it is a single-tap trill (IPA: /ɾ/)
• v is pronounced like b, there is no distinction whatsoever between B and V. (IPA: /b/)
• x is usually pronounced like an English x (IPA: /ks/)
• z like the English th (in Latin America, like English s) (European IPA: /θ/; Latin American IPA: /s/)

[edit] Vowels

The pronunciation of vowels is as follows:

• a [a] "La Mano" as in "Kahn" (ah)
• e [e] "Mente" as the ay in "day" (e)
• i [i] "Sin" as the ea in "lean" (i)
• o [o] "Como" as in "no". (short o)
• u [u] "Lunes" as in "toon" or "loom" (oo)

The "u" is always silent after "q" (as in "qué" pronounced keh).

Spanish also uses the ¨ (diaeresis) diacritic mark over the vowel u to indicate that it is pronounced separately in places where it would normally be silent. For example, in words such as vergüenza ("shame") or pingüino ("penguin"), the u is pronounced as in the English "w" and so forms a diphthong with the following vowel: [we] and [wi] respectively. It is also used to preserve sound in stem changes and in commands. y [ʝ] "Reyes" similar to the y of "yet", but more voiced (in some parts of Latin America it is pronounced as s in "vision" [ʒ] or sh in "flash" [ʃ]) At the end of a word or when it means "and" ("y") it is pronounced like i.

[edit] Acute accents

Spanish uses the ´ (Acute) diacritic mark over vowels to indicate a vocal stress on a word that would normally be stressed on another syllable; Stress is contrastive. For example, the word ánimo is normally stressed on a, meaning "mood, spirit." While animo is stressed on ni meaning "I cheer." And animó is stressed on mó meaning "he cheered."

Additionally the acute mark is used to disambiguate certain words which would otherwise be homographs. It's used in various question word or relative pronoun pairs such as cómo (how?)& como (as), dónde(where?) & donde (where), and some other words such as tú (you) & tu (your), él (he/him) & el (the).

A	E	I	O	U
á	é	í	ó	ú

[edit] How do you spell that?

Spanish Vocabulary • ¿Cómo te llamas? ¿Qué tal? How are you?
Inglés	Español
How is it spelt?	¿Cómo se escribe?
It is spelt	Se escribe
B as in Barcelona	B de Barcelona

Examples

• Roberto: Buenos días. Me llamo Roberto. ¿Cómo te llamas?

  Good day. My name is Robert. What's your name?

• Benjamín: Hola. Me llamo Benjamín. ¿Cómo se escribe Roberto?

  Hello. I'm Benjamin. How do you spell Robert?

• Roberto: Se escribe R (de Rioja); O (de Orangután); B (de Barcelona); E (de España); R (de Rioja); T (de Tigre); O (de Orangután).

  It's spelt R (as in Rioja); O (as in Orangutan); B (as in Barcelona); E (as in Spain); R (as in Rioja); T (as in Tiger); O (as in Orangutan).

• Benjamín: Muchas gracias. ¡Adiós, Roberto!

  Many thanks. Goodbye, Robert.

Go to the exercise.

[edit] Summary

In this lesson, you have learned

• How to greet people (Hola; buenos días; adiós).
• How to introduce yourself (Me llamo Rosa).
• How to introduce others (Se llama Roberto).
• How to say how you are (Fenomenal; fatal; bien).
• How to spell your name (Se escribe P-E-T-E-R).
• How to ask others about any of the above (¿Cómo te llamas?; ¿Cómo estás?; ¿Cómo se escribe?).
• The Spanish Alphabet and how letters are pronounced.

You should now do the exercise related to each section (found here), and translate the dialogue at the top before moving on to lesson 2...

Drill the words covered in this lesson with this Anki Flash Card Deck

¡Aprovéchalo! Learn the Spanish language Contents • Introduction Lesson one • Lesson two • Lesson three Lesson four • Lesson five • Lesson six Lesson seven • Lesson eight • Lesson nine Pronunciation • Contributors